More from Albert Breer: Takeaways: Defense Has Been Key to Broncos’ Turnaround | How Matt LaFleur’s Packers Set the Tone in a Thanksgiving Win
These days, you don’t hear as much about the fourth-down gambles that go the other way, but Doug Pederson had one at the most critical moment of his Jaguars’ crucial AFC South showdown with the Texans on Sunday.
After Houston missed a 50-yard field goal with 25 seconds left in the first half, Jacksonville advanced the ball from its own 42 to the Texans’ 1 on a third-and-8. Trevor Lawrence found Christian Kirk on a deep crosser, and the speedy slot was pushed out by Tavierre Thomas just shy of the goal line. That brought up first-and-goal from the 1 with just a second remaining.
The Jags were fortunate that Kirk happened to be knocked out of bounds with time left, and it was time to cash in on that good fortune. So Pederson chose to do it, well, his way—by going for the jugular, and seven points rather than three.
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It didn’t work out.
The Jags ran a quick-snap toss to the right side, the Texans were all over it and kept the deficit at 13–7 after the Kirk play could’ve smothered the hosts.
So Pederson’s dice roll came up empty. But regrets? Pederson didn’t have any of those.
“First of all, I think the layman watching the game would’ve decided to go for three there,” Pederson told me from the team bus as the Jags left Houston. “I knew we had the ball coming out of the third, to start the second half, and just wanted to be aggressive there at the end of the half. I felt like we had some momentum with the big completion to Christian. I just wanted to take advantage of that situation. I give Houston all the credit. They made a stop. Guy made a great tackle in the hole.”
The Texans, as it turned out, would do more than that. They picked off Lawrence on the opening possession of the second half, and turned it into a 14–13 lead.
But none of that fazed Pederson.
Mostly because he knew how his team would respond to his decision-making.
“They handled it great,” Pederson continued. “They know I’m going to be aggressive. I don’t surprise my football team with decisions.”
And Pederson’s players responded by taking a game for the division lead by the throat, clearly showing how they’d taken on the personality of their coach.
The Jaguars’ 24–21 win was about a lot more than that sequence at the end of the half. In many ways, that sequence summed up how the team truly has become Pederson’s—in the same fashion as some of his best Philly teams. And that leaves Jacksonville in a pretty great place heading into December.
The Week 12 Sunday slate, picked apart with the NFL adding a Friday game to the three on Thanksgiving and normal Monday nighter, wasn’t the best you’ll see. And that leaves us with a little less to dissect this morning. That said, we still have plenty to get to this week …
• The Takeaways will explain the Broncos’ defensive revival, what’s set the Eagles apart, and how a coaching change sparked the Steelers’ offense.
• We’ll dive into how Packers coach Matt LaFleur has handled the different sort of season, and team, he’s had this year, his fifth, in Green Bay.
• And we’ll have more later in the day on the situation in Carolina, where David Tepper just conducted his third in-season firing of a coach over six seasons in charge.
But we’re starting with the Jaguars, and the personality of a team that’s very clearly on the rise, and getting there at Pederson’s pace.
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Over the course of our conversation as the Jaguars made their way from NRG Stadium to the airport, and as Pederson and I picked through the details of his team’s huge win, I noticed how regularly, and comfortably, he used the word aggressive.
It came up with the aforementioned decision, of course. But it also was raised in how his quarterback played, and how his defense closed the game, and with everything in between.
So I told him that I noticed that.
“Sometimes aggressiveness doesn’t always mean always going for it in certain situations,” he says. “It could be a play-call. It could be a pressure here and there, things of that nature. The guys do a great job of understanding that. They know how I think and with decisions in-game. I just want them to feel that we’re always going to stay … I guess with our foot on the gas as much as possible.”
And there is a difference between a team being coached that way, and it embodying their coach—something, again, that once happened with Pederson’s Super Bowl champion Eagles.
For these Jaguars, there was a very natural point in the calendar for that to happen in the 55-year-old coach’s second year in charge.
With the organization’s commitment to growing a fan base in London, the Jaguars this year became the first team to play multiple games overseas in the same season—“hosting” the Falcons at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 1, and remaining in the U.K to play a “road” game against the Bills at Tottenham on Oct. 8. When those games were scheduled, the Jags also decided to pass on the option to take their bye after both games, which led to another twist.
Jacksonville did get the benefit of getting a home game—against the Colts—the following Sunday, but then had to turn around and play on the road the following Thursday in New Orleans. Which meant the team played four games over 19 days through six time zones, and with just one game in its home stadium.
The downside to that is obvious. But there was a hidden benefit to it, too, and one that was obvious from the time the team set foot in England.
“I just think that being together for 10 days in Europe, it was a really good trip,” Pederson says. “Guys were hanging out with each other. They were going to dinner. There’s nowhere to go except being around each other. I do believe that it was a really good trip for us, and we were able to figure out some things.”
On the surface, it looked like the league did the Jags no favors with this scheduling quirk.
But as it played out, and as Pederson’s group fought through it, it may have been just what everyone needed. They went into that stretch 1–2, and were coming off a 20-point loss to these same Texans at home. They came out of it 5–2, on a four-game winning streak and maybe, just maybe, with a better understanding for who they were—and who they were becoming—with Pederson’s hands at the wheel and, yes, his foot on the gas.
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If anyone needed a reminder about who the Jaguars have become, they got it after the Texans seized control of Sunday’s game in the third quarter. Again, Derek Stingley Jr. had picked off Lawrence near midfield three minutes after halftime. C.J. Stroud—spectacular again—had covered the 46 yards left, scrambling for a 1-yard score to give Houston a 14–13 lead midway through the third. Everything was going the Texans’ way.
So it was time, again, for Pederson and his players to punch the accelerator.
On the next play from scrimmage, a first-and-10 from Houston’s 25, Lawrence took a deep drop off play-action, shuffled forward three times and went downfield, hitting Calvin Ridley on another deep crosser, which Ridley collected near the 50, and took for a 45-yard gain. It put the Jags in scoring position at Houston’s 30. Just as important, it flipped the momentum.
“We had to maintain aggressiveness,” Pederson says. “They’d been playing us in a lot of single-high defenses. That was a great call by [coordinator] Press [Taylor]. They found Calvin. Trevor, the offensive line had been giving him time all day. I really felt comfortable with everything about it. Just a great play by those two. Calvin had another great game today.”
And a big part of Ridley’s big day was how comfortable Lawrence has gotten with him—which unlocks the quarterback’s ability to be aggressive going to him with the ball.
That showed up seven plays later, when Lawrence, on third-and-goal from the 1, took another deep drop, and put the ball on Ridley coming across the end line, maybe 20 yards downfield from the quarterback, to notch a touchdown that was a short completion on paper, but anything but in practice (an ensuing two-point throw to Ridley made it 21–14). On the Jags’ next possession, and on the final play of the third quarter, Lawrence found Ridley again for 18 yards.
That completion set up a Brandon McManus field goal that made it 24–14, providing all the points Jacksonville needed.
“They’re really getting on the same page,” says Pederson of Lawrence and Ridley. “That comes from all the hard work in practice and Calvin understanding the offense. Great play design [on the touchdown] by Press. Just a really good play by those two [on the 18-yarder]. They’re definitely guys that are on the same page.”
As is the whole team, when it comes to approach, and when it mattered most, that carried over to the defensive side, too.
Stroud led another touchdown drive to cut the Jags’ lead to 24–21, and Houston took possession again with 3:01 left at its own 11. Not once, but twice, did Jacksonville edge rusher Josh Allen, the former top-10 pick, get to Stroud on first-and-10. Neither sack ended the game. But both, the result of relentless pursuit, put Houston behind the sticks, and, eventually, helped put the Texans in position to have to try a 58-yard field goal with Matt Ammendola to force overtime.
“Josh obviously is a great player and one of our team leaders,” Pederson says. “It’s just a lot of grit, a lot of determination. He played well and came up extremely big in those situations. I felt like the last couple of weeks, our best players have been making plays. Josh is obviously in that group.”
Ammendola’s kick doinked off the crossbar.
His kick would have easily made it if Houston had not given up Allen’s sacks.
The AFC South is getting better. The Titans are retooling, for sure, but still have a proven coach in Mike Vrabel. The Colts have quietly moved to 6–5, and they’re doing that with coach Shane Steichen and without promising rookie quarterback Anthony Richardson, who’ll be injected back into the mix in 2024.
Then, you have the two teams that squared off in Texas on Sunday featuring two of the best young quarterbacks in the NFL.
Lawrence is 24, and Stroud is 22.
And when I asked whether the matchup Sunday felt like the beginning of something in the division, Pederson simply responded, “Yeah, I believe that.” He then explained how much he thinks of Stroud, and DeMeco Ryans, and the direction those two have the Texans headed in.
But after this one, Houston is still chasing Jacksonville in that division, and a Jaguars team that’s pretty secure in who it is and will be going forward.
As Pederson’s big gamble Sunday—and the reaction to its failure—very clearly showed.
