The Jaguars are coming home and bringing back some massive momentum back with them.
The Jaguars used another lockdown performance from their defense and kept the high-powered Bills in check most of the day in a wild 25-20 stunner on Sunday at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.
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Jacksonville needed everything it could get from its defense to sap the electricity from Josh Allen and the Bills for the second time in three years. It hung on by its fingernails, getting two fourth-quarter touchdown runs by Travis Etienne, dodging a Buffalo onside kick attempt with 2 minutes, 10 seconds left and then recovering a fumbled lateral on Buffalo’s final drive to escape London with back-to-back wins.
Who saw that coming?
“It was a real physical football game. That’s a great team over there, a really well-coached team,” said coach Doug Pederson. “We knew going in it was going to be physical, high-powered offense, all those types of things, great defense. We were just going to have to sustain.”
The Jaguars, a 5 1/2-point underdog against one of the highest-scoring offenses in NFL history through four games, took it from a track meet into light jog. And they needed that against Buffalo. Self-inflicted mistakes kept what should have been a comfortable Jacksonville win a neck-and-neck battle until the very end. But the Jaguars found a way to win.
“That’s just us being resilient. We had to just go in there and do our job each and every play,” Etienne said. “We’ve got to find a way to kind of stop stalling out at times, but we answered the bell every time they rang it. That’s what you’ve got to do as an NFL team, and we were able to do that, and to play great teams you have to make plays, and we made plays whenever we needed to, and happy we got the W.”
The finish was wild
The final minutes were a rollercoaster.
Trevor Lawrence threw a first-half touchdown pass and Etienne turned in a sizzling second half to infuse the Jaguars on what had been a relatively mundane day for the offense. They had just 11 points through three quarters before Etienne found some room to work.
Etienne’s 6-yard touchdown with 7:50 to play put Jacksonville in front 18-7. And he capped a remarkable day with a 35-yard scoring run with 2:56 to go.
With how the defense had been playing, that should have been enough. But Allen marched the Bills into the end zone in four plays, scoring on a 3-yard run with 2:18 to go. But Darious Williams smothered the two-point play and Evan Engram batted the onside kick attempt out of bounds to keep Buffalo from recovering it.
Even after all of that, the Bills had one final opportunity. Jacksonville punted it away and left Allen with 22 seconds to do something. But Stefon Diggs’ catch and attempted lateral to keep the play going was recovered by Travon Walker.
“First half, really the defense keeping us in it, and the second half in crunch time, the offense had to go down and have a drive, and we were able to do that,” Lawrence said. “It was all three phases working together, so that was big, and then we knew what type of game it was going to be.”
Despite little to show for it on the scoreboard, Lawrence made one big throw after another, including a 32-yard toss on third-and-5 to Calvin Ridley to set up Etienne’s dagger. He finished 25 of 37 passing for 315 yards and a touchdown. Jacksonville had been one of the league’s worst teams on third downs, but went 10 of 17 on Sunday. Ridley had four of those conversions. Etienne rushed for 136 yards on 26 carries.
Fast start, then a lull
A fast start and an 11-0 lead turned into a grind after that. Self-inflicted mistakes — two lost fumbles inside field goal range — and another inadequate performance from the offensive line kept Buffalo in it until the very last play. But the Jaguars found a way to overcome those issues, draining the clock with the ground game and numerous clutch plays.
Jacksonville had two killer turnovers in scoring range, both on lost fumbles by Lawrence. The first came at the end of the opening half with the Jaguars at the Buffalo 12. The latter came two plays into the fourth quarter with Jacksonville at the Bills 12.
Jacksonville (3-2) will return home in Week 6 to face the Colts at EverBank Stadium. The Jaguars beat Indianapolis in the regular season opener. Can the Jaguars keep the momentum for that one? Buffalo entered as one of the highest-scoring teams in NFL history through four games (34.8 ppg) but labored all day against Jacksonville until the final seven minutes where Allen led two 75-yard touchdown drives that took a combined 2:26.
The Jaguars forced Buffalo to punt six times.
“Listen, our defense, two weeks in a row. My hats off to [defensive coordinator] Mike Caldwell and the staff, just the way they’ve prepared our players, the way the players have embraced the game plans, the way they practice during the week, and then go out and play the physical style that they’re capable of playing,” Pederson said. “It’s that things are beginning to kind of gel for them as a unit, and creating takeaways, obviously. Again, this is two weeks in a row.”
Zay’s return brief but big
The return of Zay Jones after a two-week absence was a big boost for Lawrence and the Jaguars early. It opened things up more for Christian Kirk, who ran free in the slot. Two of Kirk’s three catches in the first half ate up huge chunks of yardage and went for first downs and led to points on the drives.
Jones in the lineup allows Jacksonville to run a more natural receiver set, with Ridley and Jones outside and Kirk in the slot.
Jones had a 6-yard touchdown catch where he went up high in the back of the end zone and managed to stamp both feet in bounds before falling out. Kirk’s other catch went for 20 yards, put Jacksonville in Buffalo territory and led to a 44-yard field goal by Brandon McManus for an 11-0 lead. Jones’ day ended with a knee injury in the second half.
The offensive line
The Jaguars’ much-maligned unit didn’t get much of a look at their fully stocked offensive line. Cam Robinson returned at left tackle after a four-game performance-enhancing drugs suspension. That meant Jacksonville had five players on the line it had planned on for the first time this season.
It lasted all of 11 plays.
Walker Little, who had replaced Robinson and left tackle last year when the Alabama product sustained a knee injury, left midway through the first quarter. The team said he had a knee injury, and Little didn’t return.
The addition of Robinson didn’t make the impact it should have across the front. That unit continues to be the team’s most disappointing.
Rookie right tackle Anton Harrison had a tough first half. He was flagged once on a hold and another on being too far downfield. Those penalties erased 35 yards in plays and a pair of first downs. The hold was far more damaging for Jacksonville because it wiped out a 17-yard gain by Kirk on a reverse that put the Jaguars in field goal range.
Robinson, of course, was rusty after a month out of action. One of the team’s most excruciating plays of the day came on an excellent drive at the end of the half. Jacksonville responded to the Bills’ first touchdown of the game with a perfect drive to get in position for points. But AJ Epenesa torched Robinson on a rush and walloped Lawrence for a strip sack that Buffalo recovered.
Robinson was beat again in the second half, going low to try and block Epenesa and whiffing badly. That left Epenesa all alone with an easy sack of Lawrence. One play later, Luke Fortner sent the snap past Lawrence, a ball that Buffalo nearly recovered. Lawrence was sacked a season-high five times.
“We need to continue to clean up. Still just a little bit sloppy,” Lawrence said. “But the difference is we’re making the plays when we have to make them in crunch time, and I think the other two games that we’ve lost, we didn’t do that when the moment was there. We kind of let the opportunity slip.”