JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars lost their sense of urgency and forgot how to win. Maybe they just weren’t ready.
The self-analysis and scrutiny on a disappointing season was in full force Monday morning as Jaguars players returned to Miller Electric Center to clean out their lockers after an abrupt finish forced them to miss the postseason. They expected to be preparing for a home playoff game, not gathering things up to start the offseason early.
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Disappointment was easy to spot.
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“You never want to have to be in a situation, lose a game like that and miss the playoffs when there were so many expectations, so much positivity, so much to look forward to. And we thought we were going to go a lot further this year,” said quarterback Trevor Lawrence. “And the reality is we weren’t able to do that and it’s disappointing and you got to live with that. You got to live with the result and move on.”
The Jaguars’ 28-20 loss to the Titans on Sunday completed a freefall unlike anything in the franchise’s 29-year history. Jacksonville began December with an 8-3 record and a 99% chance of making the playoffs. The team ended losing five of its final six games for the most stunning collapse ever.
The Texans got the AFC South title. The Jaguars got a list of questions longer than a drugstore receipt.
Sorting out the aftermath of a 9-8 season was difficult.
All Jacksonville needed to do was beat a 5-11 Tennessee to wrap up the AFC South. Players offered numerous interpretations of why things ended so poorly. Lawrence didn’t play well in his third season. The defense couldn’t stop teams (or backup quarterbacks Jake Browning, Joe Flacco or Ryan Tannehill) when it needed to.
“I think there’s a sense in a nature of, you know, at some point it’s going to happen and that’s not how football works,” receiver Christian Kirk said. “You got to go out there and you got to take it. And eventually [if you don’t play well] it will expose you. And the NFL is hard, and we just weren’t ready.”
How could a team that handled having to play near-perfect football in crunch time last year — and brought back just about every meaningful piece of its roster — forget how to navigate those waters this season?
“It happened. It’s the card that we’re dealt. It’s ultimately what we earned. So, I think moving forward, this has to be a part of our story,” said tight end Evan Engram. “We have to let this feeling and this ending of the season, enable us to truly become who we aspire to be, who we want to be and understand that nothing is ever given to us. Everything is earned. What you put in is what you get out of it.”
Several players said that this year’s team lacked the spark, the finish or the juice that it had last season. Edge Josh Allen said that the focal point shifted during Jacksonville’s second half this season compared to the run last year. The Jaguars were a second-half team and refused to lose. This time around, Jacksonville just couldn’t bail water out fast enough from a ship that sprung leak after leak after leak.
“Games are meaningful in December. That was our that was our main focus last year. Play meaningful games in December [through] February. And when we got in this situation this year, I think the focus changed on going back to the fundamentals and doing that. So, it was kind of took a little step back,” he said. “I think that was the main focus. I think we lost track of that. And we kind of made it even more simpler because we had a lot of miscues and we focused too much on those little miscues that we forgot the objective was to play meaningful games, and, in essence, the urgency we had back then.”
Was there a loss of confidence in Lawrence or the system itself? Kirk said not at all. The players have to execute and perform, something that wasn’t done well enough.
“I do [have confidence in the system]. But right now, I’m not confident in the way that us as players have executed it,” he said. “I think we didn’t do a good enough job of putting ourselves in positions to be successful.”