Jacksonville Jaguars grind out a win over the Cleveland Browns 19-7

Another sloppy week, but the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Cleveland Browns for their fourth win in a row.

Not a pretty day in Cleveland on Sunday afternoon, both the weather and the play on the field. The Jaguars never could find their footing, and let the Browns hang around until the end.

But just like last week against the Los Angeles Chargers, Jacksonville kept fighting and found a way to win another game, the fourth in a row.

A few takeaways from the gritty win in Cleveland:

Offense was sluggish

The first half started decently as the Jaguars got Leonard Fournette and the run game going early and put up ten points. But it was not sustained, and the offense stalled out for much of the remainder of the game.

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Blake Bortles had another tedious performance. Bortles had just 154 yards on 30 attempts, and had two fumbles, one of which he lost. The offensive line has to share some blame for the lack of protection, but Bortles often was trying to do too much on plays that were just not there. Another one of Bortles’ persistent problems showed up today as well, which was batted passes. The Browns knocked down numerous passes at the line of the scrimmage.

The offense was given many opportunities to put points on the board against Cleveland. They picked up first downs and Fournette peaked 100 yards on the ground, but never found any kind of rhythm on Sunday.

Defense does it again

It was another field day for the Jaguars defense on Sunday. Aside for the lone Browns scoring drive, Jacksonville completely bottled up Cleveland’s offense. When the first quarter concluded, the Browns had just four yards of total offense, and finished the game with only 184.

The league leader in sacks, the Jaguars brought down DeShone Kizer five times, including two strip sacks by Yannick Ngakoue, who had a monster day. Ngakoue was involved in another forced fumble alongside Calais Campbell, and had 2.5 sacks total.

The defense also had two interceptions, by Telvin Smith and A.J. Bouye, adding up to five total turnovers on the Browns.

In another game where the offense was sloppy, the defense once again picked up the slack and shut the door on any Browns upset attempt.

Jacksonville has given up just seven points in two of their last three games.

Special teams gave the Browns hope early

The Jaguars special teams had a rocky start to game, and injected the Browns with some life.

It started on the opening kickoff as Cleveland returned it 53 yards to the Jacksonville 48 yard line. Then on the first Jaguars possession, Brad Nortman shanked a punt for just 21 yards, and the Browns started the drive with the ball at their 45 yard line.

Throw in the first missed field goal since joining the team by Josh Lambo, and the special teams were making the type of mistakes that keep an inferior team in the game.

All in all, it was another ugly win. But it was just that, a win, and the team is finding ways to get it done. The win over Cleveland makes it four straight for the Jaguars. Jacksonville now holds a full one game lead on the Tennessee Titans in the AFC South, and is currently sitting in the three seed in the AFC playoff picture.