The season is for all intents and purposes over.
That is the takeaway as the Jacksonville Jaguars lost their fourth-straight game and fell to a seemingly insurmountable 3-5 record on the season, dropping their annual London “home” game to the Philadelphia Eagles, 24-18.
The Jaguars did play tougher than they had in the prior three outings, against the defending Super Bowl champions, but injuries on the defensive secondary and a front seven that could not maintain significant pressure on Carson Wentz, eventually led to the team with the better quarterback eventually pulling away.
The defense did start fast early, forcing two turnovers on the first two Eagles series, including Jalen Ramsey’s first interception of the season, but the Jaguars offense was able to muster only 3 points off of them.
On offense, quarterback Blake Bortles played much better than the last three weeks, but still was mired by bad play in the receiving group, which registered 6 dropped passes on the day, a reoccurring theme most of the year, and some poor decision making that often looked like unnecessarily rushed throws. The team seemed to decide newly acquired Carlos Hyde was better as an extra linemen, as he was essentially non-existent in the running game with the Jaguars curiously refusing to run much of the game.
For as improved as Bortles played, the offense twice had the ball down one score late in the game, and twice the offense failed to get the ball into the end zone. Including on the final drive, where on the deciding 4th & 2, Bortles seemed to rush himself into an uncatchable ball to essentially end the game. On the bright side, Josh Lambo made a career-high four field goals, including a 57 yarder.
The Jaguars enter the bye week now two games behind the Houston Texans, three if you include the tie breaker, and have to turn their attention to what the best decisions for the franchise are for 2019 and moving forward, as the post-season hopes are all but dead.
But hey, at least Shad got his revenue today!
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