A good start and a forgettable finish. Sound familiar?
To Jaguars fans, it’s something that they’ve seen a time or too many. A promising open, a lull in the middle and an all-too-uncomfortable ending. It played out just like that in Sunday’s season opener against the Dolphins at Hard Rock Stadium, a 20-17 loss that will no doubt trigger plenty of questions for head coach Doug Pederson on just what has changed since last year.
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Jacksonville has lost six of its last seven games dating back to last season, and the questions from this one will linger. Just how exactly did the Jaguars lose this game?
“We just kind of gave it away. There’s going to be a lot to learn from Week 1. It’s early, and we’ve got a lot of confidence in the group we have,” said quarterback Trevor Lawrence. “We’ve got a really good team, but we can’t give games away, especially against another really good team, which is going to be every week. Yeah, definitely disappointing.”
The Jaguars were excellent for a half and then, much like their performance to close 2023, imploded in a way that didn’t seem possible. Jacksonville (0-1) controlled the opening half and took a 17-7 lead into the break. The performance, from playcalling to execution, was a mess after that.
A fumble by Travis Etienne going into the end zone in the third quarter triggered a furious Dolphins rally that ended with a 52-yard walk-off field goal by Jason Sanders.
“We’ll look at it, make the corrections and get ready for next week,” Pederson said.
Lawrence had a shot to author a go-ahead drive with 4 minutes, 22 seconds to play but was sacked on back-to-back plays. The Jaguars had to punt it away and then watched as Tua Tagovailoa marched the Dolphins into scoring position for the winning kick by Jason Sanders. Lawrence had a pedestrian afternoon, going 12 of 21 for 162 yards and a touchdown pass to rookie Brian Thomas Jr.
One play changed it all
The Jaguars had Miami on the ropes in the third quarter, poised to polish off their second scoring drive of more than 90 yards on the day and take a 24-7 lead.
Etienne took the handoff up the middle and was 3 yards from the goal line with no one in front of him. Jevon Holland came over Etienne’s shoulder and punched the ball out. Kader Kohou recovered in the end zone. One play later, Tagovailoa hit Tyreek Hill on an 80-yard touchdown. Instead of a 17-point lead the Jaguars were in front just 17-14 and had all momentum sapped away. Hill started the day in handcuffs when he was detained by local police during a traffic stop before the game. He finished with 130 yards and a touchdown on seven catches.
“Yeah, it takes a little wind out, but guys battled,” Pederson said of the turnover. “The defense stepped up and made some stops. It was just kind of a tale of two halves, really. We made plays in the first half, they made plays in the second half, so credit them.”
The Jaguars nearly gave it right back, too. Parker Washington fumbled the ensuing kickoff but got it back. Jacksonville did nothing with it, including getting stopped on third-and-1 and fourth-and-1 from its own 32. The only saving grace from that drive was that Sanders shanked a 42-yard field goal. Sanders didn’t miss his next attempt, a 37-yarder to knot things up at 17-all with 4:22 to go.
“I felt like just kind of a momentum swing in the red zone,” Etienne said. “I just got to have my hands on the ball enough. It felt like kind of a turning point in the game, and I just have to be better for my team.”
Nielsen’s defense
The biggest change from last season for the Jaguars is on the defensive side of the ball. After an implosion in the second half of 2023, Pederson opted to make a change on defense. He fired Mike Caldwell after two years and hired Ryan Nielsen.
That shift has been a breath of fresh air. Nielsen’s defense is man heavy and rotates quite liberally. Jacksonville saw that on the opening drive when rookie Jarrian Jones, third on the depth chart, was in the game and ran stride for stride with Hill to force an incompletion. The Dolphins labored to move the ball with any consistency in the opening half, going for it twice and coming up empty on fourth down. Devon Achane scored Miami’s only points in the half, banging in for a 1-yard touchdown with just over a minute to play before halftime.
There were a couple misses in coverage, Hill getting by Ronald Darby and Andre Cisco on the 80-yard touchdown in the third quarter and a woeful whiff of a tackle attempt by Antonio Johnson that wound up allowing a first down. Miami wound up scoring on that drive late in the second quarter. Tagovailoa passed for 337 yards (23 of 37). The Dolphins piled up the yardage but Jacksonville’s defense played well enough to win.
Rookie BTJ shines
Thomas, the No. 23 pick in last April’s draft, made an instant impact. The 6-4, 205-pound receiver was drafted for one reason — give Lawrence a big target who could take the top off the back end of a defense. The Jaguars saw glimpses of that in limited preseason reps but saw it immediately in Week 1.
Lawrence hit Thomas for his first NFL touchdown on a beautiful third-down throw in the back left corner of the end zone. A pair of Miami defenders were locked on Gabe Davis and failed to adjust to Thomas. Lawrence threaded the ball between those players and Thomas brought it in and toe-tapped in bounds for a 14-0 lead with 6:21 before half.
He was also effective in setting up Jacksonville’s first touchdown.
On Jacksonville’s second drive, Lawrence dialed up a long ball to Thomas in the end zone but he drew a pass interference against Jalen Ramsey that put the ball at the 1. Etienne dove across the goal line to cap a sterling drive. The Jaguars worked almost exclusively on the ground, with Tank Bigsby moving that drive in big chunks.
Thomas had Ramsey by a couple steps on the pass attempt, and Ramsey could only grab ahold of him to prevent what would have been a touchdown pass. The rookie jawed to Ramsey after the flag, something that Jaguars fans can appreciate against the former Jacksonville cornerback who forced his way out of town feigning a back injury four games into 2019.
Bigsby was excellent on Sunday. He led all rushers (12 carries, 73 yards). Davis led Jacksonville in receiving (three catches, 62 yards). Christian Kirk had one of his worst games with the Jaguars catching one pass for 30 yards and dropping a pair of targets on third-down.
“We know we have to improve and get better,” Lawrence said. “The reality is though, it’s Week 1 — we’re 0-1. Not the start we wanted, but even if we’re 1-0, we still have 16 more games that we’ve got to do something with. The mindset doesn’t change for us.”
Speaking of rookies
Kicker Cam Little, a sixth-round pick, doesn’t look like an imposing player up close. Listed generously as 6-1 and 172, Little joked throughout training camp about his slight frame and healthy appetite. But Little has a massive leg and delivered for his first NFL field goal at the end of the first half.
With just 57 seconds and one timeout left, Lawrence marched Jacksonville from its own 23 with two big throws to flip the field. He hit Thomas for 18 and then threaded a pass down the center of the hashes to Davis to pick up 20. Those throws put Jacksonville in Little’s range and he calmly put a 53-yarder through the uprights as the half ended for a 17-7 lead. The franchise has struggled with consistency in the kicking game since Josh Lambo’s best season in 2019. Little, at least on paper, is young enough to smooth that out.