Big Cat Country
The Jacksonville Jaguars just keep winning.
Sunday’s 23-17 win over the Indianapolis Colts was in no one’s book a pretty or convincing win, but a win nonetheless that moved Jacksonville to 12-4 this season and completed the sweep over the Colts.
Trevor Lawrence rushed in two scores and the defense grabbed two picks – get some Al’s. The win was never in question as the Jags rattled off their seventh consecutive victory to maintain their position atop the AFC South and in striking distance for the AFC’s top overall seed.
There was plenty to like about the victory and also a few things that might have raised concerns, but nothing from Sunday should derail what the Jags have built to this point. Just one more regular season game now stands in the way of this team and their quest for the Super Bowl.
WINNERS
Continuing to Win
It isn’t easy to win in the NFL. Sometimes your day at the office is far tougher than it normally is. The Jags saw that Sunday.
Yes, Philip Rivers is the quarterback for the Colts and the Colts are not an extremely healthy team currently. But they are still a decent enough team with plenty of good players. The Jags won a tough road game which should be considered a huge overall victory outside of the scoring being within six points.
Jacksonville has won four road games in a row during their winning streak. That is the type of thing you can carry with you into the playoffs. This squad knows they will have their backs against the wall a lot of times while on the road, but instead of running from that, has embraced it. And it works.
We single out individual players or coaches a lot because it’s easier to pinpoint someone having a 100-yard day or two touchdowns than it is to applaud the franchise as a whole. The Jaguars are doing a great job winning football games as a whole though. Sometimes they are just uglier than usual.
Buster Brown
The somewhat sudden newsdrop of Jourdan Lewis going down for the year meant it was going to be time for the Jaguars’ corners to really step up.
As has been the calling card for his entire tenure in Jacksonville, Montaric “Buster” Brown has been the replacement corner when the usual starter gets hurt. He has done that for much of this season and helped keep the secondary afloat Sunday in Lewis’ absence. He got targeted a good bit, but held his own overall.
Brown had two pass breakups which were really just two dropped picks he could have had. He was credited with a third during the game, but he didn’t actually touch a ball that was dropped. Brown also finished second on the year in total tackles with six.
By game’s end, Brown was the highest rated Jaguar according to PFF with a noisy 88.2 grade.
Something that also might fly under the radar was a likely touchdown-saving...
