Twenty-six points in the fourth quarter. They gave up 26 points in the fourth quarter!
After the Chiefs game, Liam Coen told the team in the locker room that “not much we do is truly the most pretty thing in the world.”
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Oh, how right he is. This team love to do things the hard way. The Jags are nine games into the season and still haven’t put together a solid four quarters of good football. So far this season it was start slow, finish fast. Against the Texans, they flipped the script. They started fast and looked like they were in control of the game. I don’t even want to say they finished slow. They didn’t finish at all. They just stopped.
The Texans scored 26 points in the fourth quarter — with Davis Mills at quarterback. Mills had a career record of 5-19-1 going into the game. Two of those wins were against the Jaguars. Guess we should have known his sixth career win would be against the Jags, too.
It comes down to this. The Jags just weren’t good enough. They need more from their top guys on offense and defense.
Mills dropped back to throw 45 times, behind one of the worst offensive lines in the league and the Jags finished with two sacks and largely got no pressure. They have got to get more from Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker.
But I don’t want it to seem like all of the blame is on the defense because where was the offense at during the fourth quarter? The O-line was banged up, and that had an impact on what they could do, but there is no room for an excuse like that. They have to be better. Trevor Lawrence has to be better.
The plan for the day was to run the ball and get out of Houston. Well, that was fine when it was working. So the raw numbers from Lawrence, I have no problem with. It’s the head-scratching plays from him. At some point, they can’t keep happening.
On the final drive of the game, the Jags go out there with 31 seconds to work and on the first play, Lawrence gets sacked. That can’t happen. Not in that situation. Like I said, there was some shuffling going on the O-line, so the rush got there quick, but he just has to get rid of the ball.
This team will go as Lawrence goes. When the O-line gives him time, he has shown he can get the job done. In the wins this season, Lawrence has been sacked a total of six times. That’s six times in five games. In the losses this season, Lawrence has been sacked 20 times. That’s 20 times in four games, including the five the Texans got. It’s simple — football games are won and lost at the line of scrimmage. Last year, the Jags were bad in the trenches. This year, they are better, but there is still work to be done.
And it has to be done quickly. The Jags have lost three of their last four games. That 4-1 start to the season is feeling farther and farther away. I don’t want to say this is starting to remind me of the 2023 season where the Jags fell apart down the stretch, but something about this feels familiar. And not in a good way.