JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – It was a bad day. Will it get better for the Jaguars? That is tough to say. But one thing is for sure — this team is missing something. Here are my Four Cents from Sunday’s 37-17 loss to the Texans.
No fight
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You can have the nicest sports car in the world, but if you have a flat tire it won’t go anywhere fast. You can have three great tires, but just one flat can hold everything back. The Jaguars are that sports car. They have the quarterback ... the coach ... the talent. But they don’t have that “it” ... That energy ... that spark, whatever you want to call it. It is that thing in sports that just seems to separate some teams, some players from the pack. The Jaguars just don’t seem to have it, and that is one of those intangibles that is just hard to fix.
The team just looked flat. They looked lifeless. They didn’t look like they had any fight in them. That is the problem. I’m not saying guys need to be getting into fights on the sidelines but they need to show something.
Just no good right now
It’s three games into the season, and, despite whatever expectations we had for the Jaguars going into the year, they just aren’t very good right now. I tend to be a glass half-full-kind-of guy. I try to find the silver lining.
But there really isn’t a silver lining right now. Everything went wrong against a bad Texans team. A Texans team that was without four starting offensive linemen and the Jaguars didnt get a single sack. A Texans team that was without three starters in their secondary and the Jaguars passing game was lifeless. There is no positive from this game. It was bad.
Just hold on
So, were we wrong about the Jaguars as a team? Was the hype train out of hand? Maybe a little bit. But I wouldn’t jump off the Jaguars train just yet. It is just Week 3 of the season. It is still early. The Jaguars are running out of time for that excuse but it works right now.
The same reason this loss is frustrating is the same reason this team won’t panic — Doug Pederson. His coaching style is calm in the middle of the storm on the sideline. When everything is going wrong or everything is going right, Pederson is the exact same guy. Calm. But in games like against the Texans, where the team just looks like a sports car with a flat tire, maybe calm isn’t what they needed. The team reflects Pederson; they are calm during bad moments — but Sunday they just needed a spark plug. And if that doesn’t come from the coach, it has to come from the bench. The Jaguars need a player to step up and be that spark plug. Be that fourth tire on the car. I don’t know who that person will be, but the Jaguars have to figure it out soon.
Was this the reality check they needed?
Last year, the Lions blew out the Jaguars and that was the reality check the team needed. Well, this year’s blowout has come early and from the Texans. If it doesn’t provide that same sort of reality check, then the Jaguars could be in for a long season. But if this game inflates that tire and gets the team driving in the right direction then you will be glad you didn’t just jump out of the car during that little pit stop.