Jacksonville Jaguars Wednesday Warm-up: Getting ahead early
By Daniel Lago
With 8 games left on the 2015 NFL regular season slate, the Jacksonville Jaguars have a realistic shot at winning the AFC South and hosting a playoff game. That’s absolutely mind-boggling, but it’s the reality of the division right now. Those chances are even more pronounced now due to an injury to Andrew Luck that should keep him out 2-6 weeks, if not the rest of the season.
Colts realistically expect Andrew Luck to miss at least a month with lacerated kidney and abdominal muscle injury, per @Edwerderespn.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 11, 2015
Everything so far this season has lined up for the Jaguars to take that next step and become a competitive playoff team, but the young squad hasn’t taken advantage. The Jaguars have 2 wins when they should 4, maybe 5, and lead the division by a comfortable margin.
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The Jaguars have done a much better job in year 3 under head coach Gus Bradley of keeping games close through three quarters, but they continue to make catastrophic mistakes in the final few sequences of the game. We’ve already detailed the string of
errors that cost the Jaguars in New Jersey
on Sunday, but we’ve seen similar things happen against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Houston Texans.
In the Jaguars two wins this season, they’ve managed to do one important thing early – get a big lead.
Against the Miami Dolphins, Blake Bortles threw 2 touchdowns to Allen Robinson to put the Jaguars ahead 17-6 before the away team snuck a touchdown in before haftime. The large margin helped the Jaguars keep the Dolphins at bay enough to hold on and kick a game-winning field goal late in the 4th quarter.
The Jaguars did the same thing against Buffalo, but they instead squandered a 27-3 lead before Blake Bortles drove the offense in for a game-winning touchdown.
Even though the Jaguars get these big leads early, the games still manage to be close at the end. The Jaguars need to do what legitimately good teams do – get ahead early and hold a lead.
The Baltimore Ravens have one of the worst secondaries in the league, giving up 284 yards per game through the air and 8.4 yards per attempt on average.
Bortles and the Allens need to take advantage and attack a weak secondary early. Then, it’s the coaching staff’s turn to dial up some blitzes and pressure Joe Flacco.
It sounds simple, but it’s something the Jaguars have failed to do so far in 2015. Hopefully that changes this week in Baltimore.