Jaguars fall to Kansas City 42-20

I guess if we are fans, we have to live through this period of getting beaten to pulp week in and week out. This is not the year anyone thought it would be. Still, it was an entertaining game in a strange way. I thought Todd Bauman was great. I thought Marcedes Lewis was great. It was virtually tied at half time, so you couldn’t leave the game, the Jaguars might have pulled it out.

I thought the game was lost on three plays, well maybe four plays.  First was Thomas Jones cracking off a 70 yard TD run. He finished with 125 yards, pretty much by half time. The second was Dwayne Bowe catching a 53 yard TD pass. Rashean Mathis was supposed to have Don Carey cover over top but Don Carey missed that part. The third was Derek Cox slapping down a pass when it was in his hands to intercept. The fourth was Todd throwing to Zack Potter over the middle but got intercepted for a touchdown. Those plays accounted for the margin of victory. Could the Jaguars have won?, Sure. Would the Jaguars have won? Probably not.

In the game preview, we said the 5 reasons the Jaguars would lose were:

1) Kansas City would own the time of possession. They did, 34 to 26 minutes. The Jaguars again couldn’t get the Chiefs off the field on third down. They converted on 55% of the third downs to the Jaguars 30%. With that little time, the Jaguars didn’t have the offense to stay in the race.

2) Ryan Lilja and Jaamal Charles would give the Jaguars a real test in keeping the run game in check. Well Kansas City rolled up 236 yards on the ground. In fact Matt Cassel only threw 18 passes and they still had 42 points. The run game was not in check, it wasn’t there. The team that held Chris Johnson was beaten at the line of scrimmage today.

3) The Kansas City defense would force us to throw and our QB will be under pressure all day. Todd Bauman ran for his life many times. At least he was decisive about getting the ball out. David might have been sacked 5 times. Hali had one sack, two tackles for a loss and 3 quarterback hurries.

4) The Jaguar QB situation. I loved what Todd Bauman did today but only because he was on a tractor 5 days ago working his dads farm. His wife and kids were there and he had 3 days preparation. Great job Todd, but only under the circumstances. To win this would have stuff of legends.

5) Kansas City smells Division title. Well San Diego lost again today and Oakland destroyed Denver in the most horrible beating this year. Kansas City needed this win and both they and Oakland are emerging as the top teams. They were not going to lose this game.

The real risk to the Jaguars right now is a total meltdown for the season. With a loss to Dallas next week, Jack Del Rio faces the real possibility of losing this team. He may have already lost the owners trust, I don’t know. It won’t take too many more 20+ beatings to have a rebuilding among the coaching staff.

I have to give the game ball to Aaron Kampman and Marcedes Lewis today. They played to their usual top level. Nothing else (except Scobee being perfect) impressed me. How did you see it?

– Terry O’Brien