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Michael DiRocco, ESPN Staff Writer
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars (8-6) sit atop the AFC South, tied with the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts with three weeks remaining in the season. They have now lost three games in a row, and while they have the benefit of the easiest remaining schedule of the three teams, their margin for error is pretty much gone.
They’ll have to overcome injuries to key players (including to quarterback Trevor Lawrence), self-inflicted errors and the inability to consistently run the ball if they’re going to win back-to-back division titles for the first time since 1998-99.
“We’re still in first place,” coach Doug Pederson said. “Fourth in the AFC [in terms of playoff seedings]. We’ve got a chance to accomplish a goal that we set out to do and that’s to win the AFC South. Obviously, we’re making it hard on ourselves, but we have to stay focused on that.
“I think so much sometimes we focus on the negative all the time and not the positive. We’ve got to find the good, too, and fill our players’ heads with positive [things] this time of year. We feel like we’re still a good football team and we play like it at times. It’s just at times we don’t look very good.”
The team hasn’t looked good in the past three weeks in losses to Cincinnati, Cleveland and Baltimore. The Jaguars have had 13 offensive penalties accepted, which includes a league-high eight false start penalties. Only one team has had more offensive penalties accepted in that span (Cleveland had 14). They’ve also turned the ball over six times, including five by Lawrence (three interceptions and two fumbles). All were unforced errors, which has been an ongoing issue all season but especially costly the past three weeks.
To keep their position as the No. 1 seed in the AFC South, they’ll need to stop making the game harder for themselves.
“We can’t make mistakes like these each week,” outside linebacker Josh Allen said. “Once a game or once every four games? Cool. It’s football [and] things happen. But when it’s a continuous thing, that becomes a problem and those are problems that we can’t have. And it starts in practice.”
Another element the Jaguars are dealing with: injuries to key players. Receiver Zay Jones hurt his hamstring against Baltimore, and Pederson said Monday that he’s week-to-week. Lawrence self-reported symptoms of a concussion after the loss to the Ravens and is in the concussion protocol — which puts his status for Sunday’s game at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in doubt.
Cornerback Tyson Campbell (quad) has missed the past two games, and safety Andre Cisco (groin) missed the Baltimore game. Their status for this week is also unclear. Receiver Christian Kirk is on injured reserve with a core muscle injury and will have to miss at least two more games.
That means the Jaguars’ top pass-catchers for Sunday could be receiver Calvin Ridley, receiver Jamal Agnew, tight end Evan Engram and rookies Parker Washington and Elijah Cooks. And if Lawrence can’t go, then backup quarterback C.J. Beathard would fill in. All of this uncertainty to go along with a run game that has averaged just 68 yards per game the past three weeks.
“The urgency’s got to pick up,” Agnew said. “The accountability for each other has got to pick up and we understand that. We put ourselves in this situation and we’ve been here before. Last year, we were 3-7 in late November and we ended up making the playoffs. I’m not trying to go back to last year, I’m just saying we’ve been here before, we know how to get ourselves out of situations.”
The Jaguars still have a 64.4% chance to win the division, per ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI). That’s helped by the fact that their remaining opponents (Tampa, Carolina and Tennessee) are a combined 14-28, while the Texans’ remaining opponents (Cleveland, Tennessee and Indianapolis) and the Colts’ remaining opponents (Atlanta, Las Vegas and Houston) are 22-20. The Colts have a 19.2% chance to win the division, and the Texans are at 16.4%, per ESPN’s FPI.
The Jaguars are still very much in control, but how they manage to limit turnovers and make up for injuries that have rattled the offense and defense will determine their playoff fate.
“I don’t think any confidence is lost,” Engram said. “We’re just not playing our best football. We’ve got to figure out how to do that, and we will.
“… We lost to a good team [Sunday night], but we definitely still are hurting ourselves, so it’s not like things are being really snatched out of our hands. We’re kind of letting these things go and the clock is ticking for us to fix it. Like I’ve been saying, the urgency is as high as it’s been the last two weeks before [Sunday]. It’s even higher right now.”