The Jacksonville Jaguars ’ season is far from dead, but you’d never know it by the morgue-like atmosphere that permeated from key leaders after Sunday’s insufferable 18-13 home defeat to the Cleveland Browns .
Head coach Doug Pederson was visibly distraught as an avalanche of negative questions kept coming at him in his news conference. He had no answers for why the Jaguars, especially his offense, seem completely lost.
“We’ve got to figure some things out in a hurry,” said Pederson. “Each person has to look at themselves in the mirror, me included. We’ve got to do better.”
Offensive tackle Cam Robinson sat slumped in a chair, staring at his locker for several minutes until one media inquiry prompted him to politely get up and leave.
About 15 feet away, quarterback Trevor Lawrence was sitting down and engaged in quiet conversation with veteran center Mitch Morse, both of them likely whispering something besides sweet nothings.
Beyond an 0-2 start that could quickly become 0-4 — seeing as the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans on the road are waiting in the on-deck circle — the disturbing thing about losing another winnable game is how discombobulated the Jaguars’ offense has become the last six quarters.
Missing link: Trevor Lawrence, Jacksonville Jaguars must stop going limp in big moments | Gene Frenette
Since leading the Miami Dolphins 17-7 at the half last week, the Jaguars have run 78 plays, scored 13 points and gone 3-of-14 on third down.
On a day where an EverBank promotion in conjunction with client Trevor Lawrence turned the Jaguars’ venue into TrEverBank Stadium , it couldn’t have backfired more alarmingly.
No matter how much the Browns repeatedly gave Jacksonville life with 13 penalties for 100 yards, Lawrence and the Jaguars’ offense kept stalling with three failed red zone trips, twice failing to find the end zone in first-and-goal situations against a Jim Schwartz defense.
Offense must get its act together
Sure, losing valuable tight end weapon Evan Engram to a pregame hamstring injury was a huge setback, but it shouldn’t be enough to make the Jaguars look totally disorganized in key moments.
Besides, replacement Brenton Strange was actually a bright spot with three catches for 65 yards, and narrowly missed grabbing the game-ending Hail Mary while fighting for position with safety Ronnie Hickman and cornerback Martin Emerson Jr.
“It was tough, yeah, but I always think I should catch everything,” said Strange. “That’s my mentality when the ball’s thrown to me, catch everything.
“It was pretty cluttered traffic. I was just trying to come back to the ball. I didn’t make the catch. Hopefully, if I’m in that position again, I’ll make the catch.”
The bigger point is this game should have never come down to a backup tight end trying to snare a Lawrence desperation heave from the Browns’ 33 on the last play.
Jacksonville simply did too many unacceptable things leading up to that final possession.
They didn’t take care of multiple little details that ultimately proved the Jaguars’ undoing. It’s hard to win tight games throwing away two first-half timeouts to avoid delay-of-game penalties.
Veteran running back D’Ernest Johnson must also get properly set at the snap. Instead, he drew an illegal shift penalty, nullifying a Christian Kirk touchdown catch that would have given the Jaguars a 17-16 lead (with a successful PAT).
A seething Lawrence didn't mince words about the predicament the Jaguars are now facing.
“We’ve got to be honest with ourselves, and if you don’t like and if you made a mistake and you don’t like people calling it out and talking about it, you need to find a different job because this isn’t the one,” said Lawrence. “Things matter. Little details matter. I’m talking to myself as much as anyone, so I don’t want it to be misconstrued, but that stuff matters.
“Everyone had a play today, at least one, that they can do their job a lot better. You look back at it, and all those plays add up and they affect the game and you end up losing.”
Two games of not-good-enough
Not that Jacksonville deserved to win a game in which the Jaguars were in a total funk for the first 40 minutes, but they had enough fourth-quarter chances to pull this one out and left the majority of 60,105 paying customers feeling empty again.
After collapsing in the last 17 minutes against Miami, the Jaguars took a different path to adversity by starting Week 2 like both sides of the ball needed smelling salts to get energized.
Kirk was dead on with this assessment, saying: “When things aren’t going our way, and your backs are kind of against the wall, you got there for a reason. So that means we all kind of had a hand in it.”
Cleveland held the ball for over 20 minutes in the first half. The Jaguars’ defense made embattled and legally entangled Deshaun Watson look like a competent, dangerous quarterback, something he’s rarely been in 13 previous starts with the Browns.
In fact, the Jaguars were fortunate to be only down 13-3 at the half, seeing as how a Tank Bigsby kickoff return fumble that Cleveland recovered was nullified by kicker Dustin Hopkins’ illegal formation penalty (he crossed midfield before Bigsby touched the ball).
Pederson was visibly annoyed when asked about how the Jaguars mysteriously came out so flat.
“You should be excited about stepping on the field and giving everything you have,” said Pederson. “It’s a tough sport. It’s something I’ve got to try to figure out with the guys and see what’s going on.”
Those two words, “figure out,” kept coming up as a downcast Pederson understandably couldn’t wait to stop answering questions for which he had no answers.
Why does the defense still have no turnovers after two weeks?
How does a $72 million receiver like Kirk have only two catches in two games?
Should not having Engram really caused Lawrence to complete just 14 of 30 passes, though he did have a majestic 66-yard bomb caught in stride by Brian Thomas Jr.?
What on earth was linebacker Devin Lloyd thinking when he picked up a roughing-the-passer penalty on third down after the play was over — he pushed Watson to the ground — allowing the Browns to get a first down that led to their only touchdown?
“It’s disappointing because there’s glimpses of greatness out there, but it’s not consistent enough,” said Pederson.
Sense of urgency must kick in
Maybe it’s a good sign that Lawrence, typically even-keeled after games no matter the outcome, looked like he wanted to spit nails after absorbing his seventh consecutive loss as a starter.
Lawrence isn’t pointing fingers at anyone but himself. He’s just exasperated that the Jaguars’ offense failed to get out of its own way in the first two games.
“If a team doesn’t score more than 20 points, we should win every week,” Lawrence said. “We can’t finish in the red zone today, too many mistakes, getting in and out of the huddle, communication wasn’t good. It’s a lot of things.
“Fortunately, or unfortunately, it’s what pisses you off after the game, a lot of it we control. We control it, but we’re not doing it right.”
Well, something or someone better shake the Jaguars out of their early-season doldrums. This is unacceptable for a team, especially one that has been in Pederson’s system for three years, to continually fail in big moments since the end of last year.
Just how does this ugly-looking Jaguar football start to go away?
“Just leaning on the guys that have been here, that have been through the hard times, and have been able to turn this thing around,” said Kirk. “It’s not going to take a superhero, heroic effort because we got the guys in this locker room that can change it.”
Now maybe that’s true, but it won’t happen without severely cutting down on the self-inflicted errors.
Stupid penalties. Communication breakdowns. An offensive line that has moments of being in sync, then gets Lawrence sacked for a brutal safety that pretty much closes out hope for winning the game.
This is one hot Jaguars mess. The good news is, it’s still early. The bad news is, going to enemy houses of the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans aren’t exactly ideal venues in which to find an easy fix.
Gfrenette@jacksonville.com : (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Analysis: Jacksonville Jaguars stumped to explain disheartening 18-13 loss to Browns
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