FOLIO
Words by Ka’Desh Edwards and Photos by Carmen Macri
With the season starting out not so well for the Jacksonville Jaguars, most people would expect a better outcome on Monday Night Football against the Buffalo Bills. Instead, that was not the outcome … at all.
The Jaguars offense struggled in the first quarter, having to punt the football every possession in the first quarter, only gathering 19 yards of offense in that same quarter. The first score for Jacksonville was a field goal with 10 minutes left in the second quarter, leaving the offense with no touchdowns. The first half of the game was a frustrating time, only getting five first downs in the first half (vs. Buffalo’s 19), dropped passes and an interception from QB Trevor Lawrence that was turned into a touchdown by the Bills offense making the halftime score 34-3.
The second half showed little progress on either side of the ball for Jacksonville. Lawrence delivered a pass to TE Brenton Strange for the only touchdown of the game, coming in the third quarter. The running backs only rushed for only 92 yards for the entire game, causing problems for the passing plays to be effective.
In the fourth quarter with eight minutes left in the game, Lawrence was done for the night and QB Mac Jones took over for the rest of the quarter. Jones’ first possession at quarterback he fumbled the ball and Buffalo took over.
Although there was a slow and confusing start to the game, fans were still optimistic about the Jags getting things going on offense with the defense giving them a couple of chances to get the ball and put some touchdowns on the scoreboard. But the defense struggled in the first quarter stopping the dominant running game of the Bills offense and letting the Bills score during their first and second possessions. In the second quarter, the Bills passed the ball a lot more and the secondary for the Jaguars could not find any answers on how to make consistent stops, allowing three more touchdowns for Buffalo before halftime. (The defense did a better job of holding the Bills to only scoring 13 points in the second half.) Surprisingly, with the defense playing most of the time in the first half they were able to make an impact for the offense to have a chance at scoring in the third and fourth quarter, but the offense could not get things fully going. Overall things were not going well for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In the press conference, Lawrence commented on his performance, “The quarterback has to play well every week to give yourself a shot to win, and I don’t feel like I’ve done that consistently enough.”
Although Lawrence says this, football is a team sport. While watching the game you can see that there needs to be more work at multiple positions other than just at quarterback.
Head Coach Doug Pederson feels that a few things need to be evaluated and possibly changed when it comes to plays being called and players’ playtime. He said in the press conference, “Tonight we had some guys injured. Could be moved that way. Could be performance. It’s all things we have to evaluate as we move forward.”
“This is who we are right now and it’s not very good,” he added. “We have to be honest with ourselves, and I’ve got to be honest with myself and just keep plugging away.”
Even after the big loss, the team still had more issues to deal with. Their team plane was having mechanical issues, keeping them from leaving Buffalo until after 1 a.m. EST.
Expect the Jacksonville Jaguars to go into next week’s game against the Indianapolis Colts with high expectations and a strong determination to turn their season around and get their first win. There is still a lot of football left to play this season.
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