Jacksonville Jaguars handle the Cincinnati Bengals at home 23-7: Quick Notes

The Jacksonville Jaguars finally treated the home fans to win – and some chippiness – en route to a dominant 23-7 against the Cincinnati Bengals.

In maybe the most physical and heated contest of the year, the Jacksonville Jaguars overcame a dubious ejection of their best player as they took care of business in a 23-7 versus the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Jaguars only won by 16 points but they dominated the stat sheet. Blake Bortles and the offense were sterling on third down and managed to function for a second straight week without Leonard Fournette.

Jalen Ramsey‘s disqualification was shocking and will likely be followed up by an apology from the league, but the defense pulled through and shut down the Bengals offense.

The Jaguars finally put together back-to-back wins and have set themselves up to take a hold of the AFC South in the coming weeks.

Here are a few other notes from today’s win:

• The news that Leonard Fournette wouldn’t play broke right before the game and quite frankly it could have derailed the Jacksonville offense. Fournette is the best player on that side of the ball and people still don’t believe in Blake Bortles. After his performance today, opposing teams are going to have to start accounting for Bortles and the passing game.
• Bortles was the MVP for the Jaguars. His numbers were good, not great, but his impact was felt on third down – the Jaguars had a 12 third down conversions and several of them had a high degree of difficulty. Blake threw several nice passes under pressure and he was accurate in terms of ball placement so his receivers could run the after the catch. He played at a high level when the team needed him to for a second straight week.

• Alright, so I buried the lead a bit because the story from this game was A.J. Green pretending he was on Monday Night Raw and body slamming Jalen Ramsey right before halftime. Green proceeded to punch Ramsey while he was on the ground and for some reason, both players were ejected. Surely the Jaguars will send a sternly worded letter to the league offices because there was absolutely no reason for Ramsey to be ejected. Green is likely looking at one or more games off thanks to his antics.
• After losing Ramsey, the defense gave up a big play through the air and a touchdown to Joe Mixon, but they tightened up after that and completely smothered Andy Dalton. He didn’t play too much, but Marcell Dareus was a force when he was in and I expect it won’t be long before he’s playing more snaps than Abry Jones.
• This was a big win for Jacksonville for a handful of reasons, foremost being they keep pace for first place in the division. This was also their first win at Everbank and it sets them up to really cement themselves as a playoff favorite if they can take care of business against the Chargers next week. Credit to the coaching staff for taking advantage of the bye week putting together a terrific game plan.