After a dominant Week 1 against the Carolina Panthers, the Jacksonville Jaguars dropped the ball—literally and figuratively—during a Week 2 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. And there was plenty of blame to go around.
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw a pair of picks, veteran wide receiver Dyami Brown dropped a catchable ball that would have been a touchdown, and the defense gave up over 300 yards to a Joe Burrow-less offense.
Despite that, they led the game until the end, giving the Bengals their only lead in the final seconds. Which, of course, are the only real seconds that matter in an NFL game. You don't walk away with a win for leading the first 59 minutes.
Related: 2 winners (and 2 losers) for Jaguars in Week 2 loss at Cincinnati
The Jaguars earn poor C- grading from CBS Sports
NFL analysts have a job to do, and they're going to do it whether they're right or wrong. As a result, we fans don't usually pay too much attention to what the talking heads say (though maybe sometimes we do). But Cody Benjamin with CBS Sports isn't wrong when he gave the Jags a poor "C-" grade in their Week 2 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals.
"Another week, another mercurial outing from Trevor Lawrence," he writes. "[He] threw three scores and two picks and had trouble getting on the same page as No. 1 wideout Brian Thomas Jr. Not everything was on Lawrence, but the quarterback also appeared to have communication issues with coach Liam Coen. And the secondary still has issues, surrendering more than 300 passing yards despite Joe Burrow leaving early."
To his credit, Lawrence made several great throws, though his receivers seemed to have a case of the dropsies throughout the game (more on that here). Could they have done more to win? Absolutely, and No. 16 provided his own commentary during the post-game presser that wasn't too dissimilar to Benjamin's.
"The consistency piece is lacking at times," Lawrence said (0:10 mark). "[We need to] play a full 60 minutes with focus and attention to detail and not [shoot] ourselves in the foot. That's stuff we have to correct and learn from. [We have to] make plays down the stretch. That's what really good teams do. There were times we did that today, and there's times we didn't."
Related: Questionable Travis Hunter call (rightly) has Jaguars fans fuming
Final thoughts
The Jaguars took solid aim at their own foot in their Week 2 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. They're as much to blame as anyone, though this should be hopeful news to Jags fans. The talent is there. Clean up the little things, and I think this season has more promise than many seem to believe.