The Jaguars had a win in their grasp and let it slip away again.
Trevor Lawrence threw a pair of touchdown passes but Jacksonville faded in the final two minutes and saw CJ Stroud and the Texans add another chapter to the latest Jaguars heartbreak in an 24-20 loss on Sunday. The loss, as competitive as it was for Jacksonville, is certain to boost the heat around the franchise and head coach Doug Pederson to another level. Mired in their worst start since Urban Meyer’s disastrous 2021 season, the questions about Shad Khan’s patience with the current coaching regime is going to fester for yet another week.
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“My status? I mean, no,” Pederson said about his job status. “That’s kind of a strange question, but OK.”
It’s the seventh 0-4 start in franchise history, and Khan, who proclaimed this to be the best Jaguars team in Jacksonville’s 30-year history, has got to be seething with the performance. Lawrence, who signed a $275 million contract extension in the offseason, has now lost nine straight starts.
This one will sting more than the others. The Jaguars (0-4) had two killing sequences in the fourth quarter, stalling out at the 1 on downs and then going three and out with a shot to put Houston away. Instead, it punted the ball back and watched Stroud dial up the game-winning drive after that. He marched Houston from its own 31 with 2 minutes, 54 seconds to play and hit Dare Ogunbowale, a former Jaguars player, with the 1-yard touchdown with 18 seconds left.
Jacksonville couldn’t get its final offensive prayer to fall.
“We’re that close to flipping the switch, making more plays during the games,” Pederson said. “We’re not making them right now, and that’s what’s holding us back.”
Pederson testy about offense
The Texans (3-1) were their own worst enemy, something typically reserved for the Jaguars. Houston was penalized a dozen times for 93 yards, the bulk of those in the second half and muffed a punt on their first touch of the game that led to a Jaguars touchdown. But even with all of that working against it, Houston and Stroud found a way to extend Jacksonville’s misery. The Jaguars host Indianapolis in Week 5 in what already feels like a lost season, and Pederson’s testiness after the game certainly won’t help. He gave a vote of confidence to embattled offensive coordinator Press Taylor, saying that players needed to make the plays.
“For what? I thought he [Taylor] called a great game,” Pederson said. “As coaches, we can’t go out there and make the plays, right? It’s a two-way street, so you guys can sit here and point the finger all you want, and that’s fine. Point it right at me. I can take it, OK? I can take it. So, whatever you want to ask me, say, write, go ahead.”
It was a brutal finish for Jacksonville. It erased a 17-13 halftime deficit on a Lawrence 8-yard touchdown pass to Christian Kirk to go in front with 6:21 in the third quarter. And it had an opportunity for a killshot, getting a 58-yard run by Tank Bigsby down to the 4. But the Jaguars stalled out on downs.
“I’m pretty frustrated. Like I said, a lot of missed opportunities,” Lawrence said. “It’s kind of what’s been happening the past few weeks and weren’t able to overcome it today. The guys fought hard and obviously we gave everything we had and had a chance at the end and just offensively, the last few possessions, we didn’t do enough.”
The bigger whiff came in the final four minutes. Houston had to punt the ball away after stalling at its own 22. The Jaguars had the ball and a win within sight. But the team managed to run just 43 seconds off the clock before punting it right back, and Stroud made Jacksonville pay.
Offense still a work in progress
Jacksonville finally found a bit of offensive rhythm in the second half against the Texans. Lawrence flipped the field on a 32-yard strike to Brian Thomas Jr. late in the third quarter. Four plays later, he hit Kirk on an 8-yard touchdown, a play where Kirk tapped the pylon to get in. It was his first scoring grab of the season. Jacksonville had a shot for the dagger on its ensuing drive with Bigsby ripping off a 58-yard run on third down before going out of bounds at the 4. The Jaguars, who have perpetually struggled in the red zone, got to the 1 but Lawrence was stopped on a draw on fourth, ironically, by another former Jaguars player, Foley Fatukasi.
While Lawrence and the offense got better as the game wore on, the concerning spots are still prominent.
Jacksonville went three and out on its opening drive but wound up catching a break. Steven Sims muffed the punt and Daniel Thomas recovered at the 2. Lawrence hit Thomas on the next play for a 7-0 lead. Lawrence had overthrows to both Thomas and Kirk on plays that would have gone for big gains in the opening quarter, including one to Thomas in the end zone. The Jaguars wound up settling for a Cam Little field goal on that drive.
“We have to capitalize. When we have the game in our hands, we have to go win it,” Lawrence said. “I felt like we obviously didn’t do that tonight, today. A lot of that is on me. There were some plays early in the game that, you know, I was just a little off and I got to hit those plays.”
Lawrence’s touch on throws was his biggest issue against Houston. He overthrew Kirk in the third quarter on a long ball that would have been a touchdown. Lawrence’s next throw on an out route to Gabe Davis was about a foot too high for him to reel in on the sideline. But when Jacksonville needed to scratch out a first down in the final four minutes, Lawrence and the offense mustered all of a yard. He finished 18 of 33 for 169 yards. Lawrence has passed for more than 200 yards in a game just once this season, Week 2 against the Browns.
Pederson hadn’t revealed who had been calling plays until Sunday, and bristled when asked if he would take over play-calling duties from Taylor.
“I’ll take it into consideration,” he said.
Defense starts cold
The defense, missing two starters at linebacker (Foye Oluokun and Devin Lloyd), had its struggles against Houston throughout the first half.
The Texans covered 70 yards on their first scoring drive and then ate up 74 yards on 12 plays for their second. Stroud hit Nico Collins on a 3-yard touchdown for a 14-10 lead midway through the second quarter. The killer play on that drive was a third-down holding call on safety Antonio Johnson. Pressure had already forced Stroud to throw it away. The Texans took advantage of the new set of downs and turned it into a touchdown. Linebacker Ventrell Miller had an excellent day with the spot start, leading the team with 10 tackles.
After that ragged start, Jacksonville actually played better. Roy Robertson-Harris had a sack on Stroud early in the fourth quarter that pushed Houston out of field goal range. Jeremiah Ledbetter and Yasir Abdullah helped crush the protection and Robertson-Harris took down Stroud to force a punt. It was the most push of the game by Jacksonville’s defensive line. But it faded late. Stroud passed for 345 yards (27 of 40), including 12 for 151 going to Collins.