Three Jaguars to watch against the Colts

The Jacksonville Jaguars have a huge mountain to climb on Sunday when they face the surging Indianapolis Colts at TIAA Bank Field.

The Jacksonville Jaguars still have plenty of work to do on Sunday when the Indianapolis Colts roll into town for their second clash of AFC South teams in a month. If familiarity means anything, then the Jaguars certainly have a shot to reverse their fortunes and win for the first time in eight weeks.

The Colts are proving naysayers wrong, using a high-octane passing game, tough offensive line and an improving defense to make a run toward the playoffs. For Indianapolis, this is a game where the visiting team must put their foot on the accelerator and keep racing toward the end of the season.

For Jacksonville, this is more about continuing to improve as the team has the past four weeks while stopping the bleeding of a seven-game losing streak. These two rivals don’t need much motivation for this one.

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Jacksonville held the Colts scoreless in the second half of a 29-26 loss and had it not been for a fumble by Rashad Greene, the visitors may have started the second half of the second with momentum.

Instead, these Jaguars are looking for anything to celebrate, and a win at home would certainly take some of the pressure off the offense.

The Jaguars walk into this game with a new play caller in Scott Milanovich and a new signal-caller under center. Those two changes alone may not be enough to win on Sunday, but this is the NFL and stranger things have happened.

If Jacksonville is going to end this losing streak, these three players are crucial to Sunday’s game at TIAA Bank Field.

Ereck Flowers – The fourth left guard this season the Jaguars have used in their lineup. Ereck Flowers gets his second start of the season. This week, it’s a bit different because left guard Andrew Norwell has been placed on IR with an ankle injury.

When he spoke to the media on Friday, head coach Doug Marrone said he thought there was still a lot of upside to Flowers’ career. That better be the case as the team will be without Leonard Fournette this week and the former first-round pick needs to have his best game of 2018.

Carlos Hyde – I liked this trade when the Jaguars made it and thought it would immediately help the running game. So far, the jury is still out on this one.

When given the opportunity, Carlos Hyde has shown he can move a pile and can also spring himself outside for solid gains. The two-back tandem with Leonard Fournette should be one of the better duos in the NFL. This past week, Hyde expressed a desire to be used more in this offense.

He has played for both Cleveland and Jacksonville this season. I expect Hyde to carry the ball 20 times on Sunday and show he can be a real benefit to the run game.

Cody Kessler – This is the “opportunity” Cody Kessler talked about earlier in the week. Can Kessler come in and rally this team to a few wins before the end of the season?

If anything, should he play well, it creates more drama this offseason because the Jaguars must decide what to do with Blake Bortles.

Kessler comes into a situation where he is familiar with the offense, plays like a game manager and will be able to find open receivers to keep the chains moving. I like the move to bring in the backup, I just had hoped it would have happened sooner.