Jaguars come back down to earth vs. Lions: 3 observations

The Jaguars 2022 free-agent class wasn’t productive vs. the Lions

Wide receiver Christian Kirk keeps proving the Jaguars made the right decision when they gave him a four-year $72 million deal earlier this year. But the team isn’t getting much production out of other skill-position players they inked in free agency.

Zay Jones had a career game against the Baltimore Ravens but he followed it up with one of the worst performances of his NFL career. Even though the former Raider was targeted seven times against Detroit, he only managed to catch two passes for 16 yards. You know things were bad when the broadcast pointed out that it took him six tries to register his first catch of the game.

Zay Jones popped up on the Jaguars’ injury report with a chest injury. It’s possible that he wasn’t 100 percent against the Lions but as harsh as it might sound, that’s not an excuse. If he suits up, you can’t use the injury to justify his poor performance and if it was really that bad, he would have been better off not playing. But Jones isn’t the only Jaguar the had costly drops in Week 13.

Tight end Evan Engram also had a less-than-stellar outing. He was often targeted by Trevor Lawrence and caught the Jaguars’ lone touchdown of the afternoon but he also failed to come down with a couple of catchable balls that could have helped the offense moved the chains.

Even if the Jones and Engram had caught every pass thrown their way, the Jaguars may have still lost but their chances of going toe-to-toe with the Lions would have improve considerably.