Jacksonville Jaguars escape Cincinnati Bengals with their health
By Luke Sims
The Jacksonville Jaguars played an ugly game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 3 of the preseason, but they won where it mattered: staying healthy.
While it would have been nice to see the Jacksonville Jaguars do better – especially the first team – in the Preseason Week 3 win over the Cincinnati Bengals, what matters most is that there were no major injuries.
Any time the starters see significant time in a preseason game there is always a chance that they could go down with injury. For a young Jags squad that is heavily dependent on its starters staying healthy, this is especially concerning.
Fortunately for the Jags, nobody major exited the game with an injury. This is a major win for the young team coming off the “dress rehearsal” for the 2016 season.
While things were certainly messy for the Jags (and they were deservedly called out by their quarterback for it), it only worked to highlight the need for healthy players. Two of the key takeaways were:
- A healthy Kelvin Beachum at left tackle is good, but forcing Luke Joeckel to play left guard is bad
- The Roy Miller and Malik Jackson combo matters a lot on the defensive line
Not having key players ready to play or not having them in the right role to be successful clearly made a difference against the Bengals. After two preseason losses in which the starters looked solid, the starters looked downright miserable against the Bengals.
This Jacksonville Jaguars team is heavily reliant on its top players being healthy and delivering. Fortunately, there isn’t any word right now that major players will be missing any time at the start of the season (aside from defensive back Aaron Colvin‘s four game suspension).
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There’s one more preseason game left, but the starters should only be in for a series or even less. Escaping the Bengals with their health was a bigger win for the Jags than the 26-21 final score.