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The Jacksonville Jaguars feel like one of the streakiest teams in the NFL right now. Jacksonville was on top of the world a few weeks ago, flying high after a last-second win against Kansas City from Week 5. But now the Jaguars have lost two consecutive games, including an ugly Week 7 smackdown by the Rams in London.
Jacksonville lost 35-7 against Los Angeles on a day where Matthew Stafford set an international record for touchdown passes. That must be embarrassing for Jacksonville, as they’ve played in London more than any other NFL team.
The Jaguars could not stop the Rams from moving the ball and could not put up many points themselves. That is always a losing recipe in the NFL.
But how did the Jaguars lose so badly? And did they finally show their true colors as pretenders in the AFC?
Below we will explore who is most to blame for Jacksonville’s ugly Week 7 loss from London.
The Jaguars put the ball in Lawrence’s hands early and often in Week 7.
Jacksonville hoped that their franchise quarterback could guide them to victory. Instead, he put up a dreadful performance against the Rams.
Lawrence went 23-of-48 passing for 296 yards and one touchdown. The headline is the 25 incompletions that Lawrence threw. He repeatedly missed open receivers, some due to miscommunications and others due to simply bad throws.
Jacksonville only had 19 carries by comparison, and two of those were scrambles by Lawrence himself.
Let’s not forget that Lawrence was also sacked seven times.
Simply put, the Jaguars got down early because of Lawrence’s inability to score. Then they needed him more than ever to get back in the game and it did not work.
Lawrence’s underwhelming performance perfectly encapsulates how his career has gone so far. And how Jaguars fans feel about their team right now.
There’s certainly a lot to like about Lawrence and the Jaguars. But they’ve had too many poor performances over the last few years to have much faith in them until they prove otherwise.
But silver lining: Lawrence finally found Travis Hunter for a touchdown in garbage time.
Some of the blame must be placed squarely on Liam Coen’s leadership of the Jaguars.
The Jaguars played some incredibly undisciplined football against the Rams. In fact, Jacksonville was flagged 13 times for 119 penalty yards.
That kind of volume for penalties is never good. But it looks worse when seeing what plays those penalties took away.
The worst of those came on what would have been a punt return for a touchdown by Parker Washington.
When the Jaguars weren’t committing penalties, they were shooting themselves in the foot with some boneheaded coaching decisions.
Jacksonville started the game with three consecutive punts followed by a missed field goal. That caused Coen to get even more aggressive to try and dig the Jaguars out of...
