Big Cat Country
The Jacksonville Jaguars refuse to play a normal football game this year. And it’s spectacular.
On Monday Night Football, in front of the entire NFL landscape, the Jags did what just about nobody outside of Duval County thought they would do: defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 31-28. It was by no means pretty. It was by no means a clean game. It was certainly lucky. But that’s what happens sometimes. You need a little bit of luck. The football gods bestowed that on us Monday night.
That game represents a seminal moment in Jacksonville history. These are the type of games teams must win to break through from the lower echelon of football teams the Jags have found themselves in for years. That environment is the type of thing teams need to earn respect.
All of that was done Monday night. And my ears are still ringing.
WINNERS
Jacksonville
What a night that was, man.
I wasn’t at the Chargers playoff game but I can only imagine that environment rivaled it. EverBank Stadium was rocking for hours and it actually ended in our favor. Not too often does that happen.
Clearly the Jags have hit on this new coaching staff and on General Manager James Gladstone. Who knew a geeky GM, a head coach who was in college football in 2023 and a scary Italian could team up to do wonders like this. It won’t be long before this unit is considered the best coaching staff this team has seen since its inception. There is still a long way to go to get there, but it seems we are on the right track.
I wrote at length after the Cincinnati collapse that the future was bleak. I was very doom and gloom after that. It seemed like the franchise had fallen under the same spell it has for years where things were just going to go from bad to worse. These dudes proved me wrong.
Plenty is still broken about this team, sure, but it doesn’t feel out of control. The penalties will end eventually. Lawrence seems like he is (deep breath) on the verge of breaking through. The direction is actually there.
The players on this team want to play for Coen. They want to play for each other. The free agents, like Jourdan Lewis, have acted as if they have been here for years. This is what real NFL teams do and feel like.
Beating the Chiefs one time probably doesn’t deserve this level of speak. But it sure was exciting and fun to witness, especially considering just a few weeks ago we were letting the now-benched Jake Browning tear us apart.
These moments didn’t used to happen. Now here we are. It sure is exciting.
Travis Hunter
For the first time in his short NFL career, Travis Hunter broke through and did the things he was drafted to do. He made the sort of circus plays he did in college and on the national stage, trading that...
