The Jacksonville Jaguars are still in a precarious spot, but believe it or not, the team is in the hunt for a playoff spot in the middle of December.
With a 36-22 win over the Tennessee Titans in Week 14, the Jaguars moved up a spot in the AFC South and closed the gap some on the division leader. With four weeks left in the season, here are the AFC South standings:
- Tennessee Titans: 7-6
- Jacksonville Jaguars: 5-8
- Indianapolis Colts: 4-8-1
- Houston Texans: 1-11-1
The Colts dropped to third place during their Week 14 bye and the Texans lost by blowing a fourth quarter lead against the Dallas Cowboys.
Jacksonville will finish its regular season with a home game against the Titans, offering the opportunity for the Jaguars to get back another game and secure the tiebreaker with a season sweep. That leaves three weeks for the Jaguars to make up one game on the Titans and set up a Week 18 duel for the all marbles.
That’s the simple and likeliest path to the postseason for Jacksonville, although the team isn’t far from being in the wild card hunt. The race for those three spots looks like this after the 1 p.m. ET games Sunday:
- Cincinnati Bengals: 9-4
- Miami Dolphins: 8-4
- New York Jets: 7-6
- New England Patriots: 6-6
- Los Angeles Chargers: 6-6
- Jacksonville Jaguars: 5-8
The Jaguars already have a win over the Chargers and they have a Week 16 game against the Jets. While catching up to Cincinnati or Miami is probably a lost cause, Jacksonville could come out on top of a big logjam if it strings together wins and gets a little help.
But again, the clearest path to the playoffs is by continuing to track down the slumping Titans.
