Jacksonville Jaguars squander career days for Blake Bortles and Allen Robinson

The Jacksonville Jaguars have mastered the art of the painful loss and they reaffirmed that fact in their most recent 42-39 loss to the Tennessee Titans. The Jaguar defense was the culprit this week as their inability to stop Marcus Mariota and his underwhelming set of weapons cost the Jaguars a game they should have won.

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After struggling for a few weeks, second year quarterback

had the best game of his young career, accumulating 322 yards through the air with a 67% completion and 5 touchdowns. Bortles was terrific functioning in the pocket, a very encouraging sign given the offensive line having their best pass blocking day of the year.

Bortles has been great between the 20s this year, but the redzone had been a thorn in the Jaguars’ side until Sunday. Bortles led the Jaguars to 6 redzone touchdowns, 5 of which were thanks to great throws on his part.

As good as Bortles was, the real star of the game was second year receiver Allen Robinson. With Allen Hurns out, the Titans clearly game-planned for Allen Robinson but they couldn’t stop him. Robinson put together a historic day, nabbing 10 catches for 153 and 3 touchdowns. Robinson had his usual array of spectacular “jump ball” receptions, but he also made some nifty moves to get open in the redzone.

Robinson of course had his now weekly highlight catch:

But Robinson also showed that he is a very good route runner on two of his touchdown catches:

The Jaguars have lost plenty of frustrating games in 2015, but this one is near the top of the list. Bortles, Robinson, T.J. Yeldon, and Rashad Greene all played well and the Jacksonville offense did their part on the road against an opponent that held them mostly in check two weeks ago. The defense is to blame for this loss and questions need to be raised about Gus Bradley and defensive coordinator Bob Babich, but let’s not let two commendable performances by Bortles and Robinson go unnoticed because of an embarrassing effort by the defense.