2nd half shutout not enough for Jaguars to overcome ugly 1st half

INDIANAPOLIS – In the picture attached to this article you’ll notice that there isn’t a Jaguars defender anywhere near Colts tight end Eric Ebron. That was the scene throughout the first half of Sunday’s game against the Colts. 

Give the Jaguars defense credit for making some adjustments and shutting out the Colts in the second half. But it wasn’t enough. Jacksonville dropped their fifth straight, falling to the Colts 29-26.

Going into the bye week the Jaguars said they wanted to simplify some things on defense. There were a couple of blown coverages that occurred over the four-game losing streak they were on at the time.
That type of thing isn’t supposed to happen when the majority of the secondary and linebackers all played together last season. 

Whatever adjustments were made over the past week didn’t work against the Colts. Receivers were running wide open and Andrew Luck made the Jaguars pay. The Colts scored four touchdowns in the first half.

Jacksonville entered Sunday with the No. 1 passing defense in the NFL giving up only 190 yards per game. Luck nearly surpassed that mark in the first quarter, completing 9-of-10 passes for 163 yards and touchdown. 

The fact Luck had success isn’t a surprise. Entering week 10 he was second in the NFL in touchdown passes. What was mind boggling was how his receivers got wide open, over and over and over.

In the first half Luck had completions that went for 53, 35 and 27-yards. On each play the closest Jaguars defender wasn’t anywhere near the Colts receiver.

Most of the damage was done by the Colts tight ends. After Eric Ebron’s third touchdown of the first half the Jaguars defense stood and looked at each other in disbelief. 

Jacksonville’s offense kept them in the game (when’s the last time that happened). However the team wasn’t able to overcome the sloppy start from their defense.