JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars got routed 34-3 on Sunday by the 49ers to fall to 6-3 on the season. Jamal St. Cyr’s Four Cents analysis on the game:
Don’t overreact
Sunday was bad. Like ugly bad. Like nothing went right bad. Like, oh wait, look, the 49ers just scored again bad. There is no way around that. But do not overreact. It was one game. It may have been a bit of a reality check but it was still just one game. Now, it was bad. It was the second time the Jaguars have been held without a touchdown at the Bank.
And their third loss of the year and all three have been at home too. So, it is kind of a homefield disadvantage for the Jaguars. But the team is not on fraud watch. The Jaguars are a good team. The Jaguars have five wins against teams above 500. And of their three losses, two of them have come to legit Super Bowl contenders, the Chiefs and 49ers. The other loss came against a surprisingly good Texans team.
The Texans are coming
That might be my biggest concern for the Jaguars moving forward. The Texans are sneaking up behind them. The Jaguars only have a one-game lead on the Texans and they have one more game to play against them. The biggest problem is the Texans could easily run the table. Their schedule is easy-easy-easy. Even if the Jaguars beat them — far from a guarantee now — the Texans could finish with 12 wins. That doesn’t give the Jaguars a ton of breathing room in the division for mistakes and they have some much tougher games left than the Texans do. So the Jaguars don’t have much room for errors.
Don’t stop believing
Even with that, don’t stop believing. The Jaguars are just fine. It is tough to figure out that a team with Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, Evan Engram, Christian Kirk and Calvin Ridley just can’t figure it out on offense. I can hear some of y’all yelling, ‘It’s the offensive line!’ I have pointed the finger their way at times this year and they didn’t have a good showing Sunday either, but this is basically the same O-line from last year, minus Jawaan Taylor. This group has either regressed or teams have just figured them out. Or is there another issue?
Trevor, you OK?
The biggest question of all of this is what is going on with Lawrence. Most of his games this year have not exactly been games to write home about. Don’t get me wrong, he has been good. But the expectation for this dude has never been just good. Last year, the bar was set by him and Doug Pederson. This season was supposed to be a second-year jump in the offense. That was the natural step.
Well, that jump has been more of the hop than anything else. But there are still eight games left and if Lawrence shifts it into high gear the rest of the way, that will be all that anyone will remember. And it wouldn’t surprise anyone because Lawrence has all the talent in the world. The offense is stacked with talent. It just feels like most of this season, even after wins, we have been asking when will the offense figure it out. So, I think it is fair for us to start asking, will the offense figure it out?