The Jacksonville Jaguars are cooking. Week 15’s overtime win against the Dallas Cowboys was the team’s third victory in its last four games. More importantly, it was the Jaguars’ best win of 2022 — a rally from a 27-10 third quarter deficit against a 10-3 team that saw Trevor Lawrence play like an absolute stud and his defense rise up when it mattered most.
With wins over the Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens and Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville has climbed into an unexpected spot. A team that was 2-6 and staring into the void of another lost season has reclaimed the potential shown in a 38-10 trouncing of the Los Angeles Chargers early in the season. On November 25, FiveThirtyEight pegged the club’s playoff chances at a robust two percent. Its odds of winning the AFC South? 0.8 percent.
With three weeks to play in the 2022 NFL season, those postseason and division title odds have risen to 44 and 43 percent, respectively. There’s reason to believe a team that got stomped like ripe grapes by the Detroit Lions two weeks ago could make an improbable run to the franchise’s first playoff bid since Blake Bortles and a dominant defense had the team one quarter from a spot in Super Bowl 52.
What’s changed? And why does an underdog bet like the AFC South Champion Jacksonville Jaguars feel like a heavy favorite?
It has to do with this team growing in 2022 — and a direct rival regressing heavily.
The Jaguars have overcome their own mistakes
In Week 2, the Jaguars lost out on a chance to upset the Philadelphia Eagles thanks to four Trevor Lawrence fumbles. Disappointing defeats at the hands of the woeful Houston Texans and Denver Broncos followed a similar narrative; multiple turnovers and a lack of third/fourth-down efficiency doomed this team to losses in winnable games.
Sunday’s showdown with Dallas was the fourth game of 2022 in which Jacksonville committed at least two turnovers but the first the Jags have won. This team overcame:
- a first quarter Travis Etienne fumble (led to seven Dallas points)
- a third quarter Lawrence interception (three points)
- and a Lawrence fumble in the final two minutes that gave the Cowboys the chance to grind out the clock with a single first down.
None of these sank Jacksonville. Lawrence responded to his interception with a three-play scoring drive capped off by a 59-yard touchdown strike:
How about two on the day for @zayjones11?!#DALvsJAX on FOX/NFL+ pic.twitter.com/KttO52utbr
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) December 18, 2022
After his fumble, the Jags defense held Dallas to a vital three-and-out. Lawrence didn’t throw away his second chance, converting two clutch third-and-long opportunities to set up a game-tying field goal to end regulation. That defense, ranked 28th in overall DVOA by Football Outsiders, peaked in the game’s biggest moments. None were bigger than Rayshawn Jenkins’ walk-off pick six.
Jenkz called game!#DALvsJAX | #DUUUVAL pic.twitter.com/N3LNecTFII
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) December 18, 2022
It’s not sustainable to lose the turnover battle and win the game, but the larger lesson from Sunday’s game was that a young team found the extra gear needed to turn tragedy into success. Fortunately, that’s not something Doug Pederson’s squad will have to get into often.
The Jaguars have forced at least twice as many turnovers as they’ve created in six of their 14 games this season. Jacksonville’s +.0.4 turnover margin per game ranked fifth-best in the NFL coming into Week 15. Surviving self inflicted wounds isn’t the kind of concern that’s going to come up often, but it’s still a useful skill to have.
The other massive development Sunday was success on big downs. Jacksonville came into Week 15 with a middling 40 percent third down conversion rate. Against the Cowboys and their fifth-ranked third-down defense, they turned eight of 12 third downs into new life (67 percent). Along the way, Trevor Lawrence and company only faced five third-and-long situations (eight yards or more) and still managed to hit paydirt on three of them.
So let’s talk about the reason why this team can shoot itself in the foot and still win.
Trevor Lawrence is playing grown man football
The Jaguar defense deserves credit for coming together at the right time and generating a win. However, that unit also gave up nearly 400 total yards and allowed the Cowboys to convert more than 50 percent of their third downs.
The true star of Sunday’s game was the player Jaguars fans spent 2022 hoping Urban Meyer hadn’t irreparably broken. Lawrence came into the league as an Andrew Luck-type can’t-miss prospect then spent his first season in the NFL catering to the whims of a madman with few ideas how to compete on Sundays and zero intention of claiming accountability for his failings.
This left a steep learning curve for year two but a well regarded offensive head coach in Pederson. Lawrence’s start to the season was filled with more downs than ups, predictably, for a 2-6 team. In his last six games, however, he’s looked like the perennial Pro Bowler he’s meant to be.
Since Week 9, the only starting quarterback who has been significantly more efficient than Lawrence is MVP frontrunner Jalen Hurts:
Lawrence has done this despite middling returns from the players around him. His sack rate has gone up from 1.5 per game to two. Sunday was the first time in five games his rushing offense has gained more than 95 yards. His receiving corps remains a cluster of fine complementary pieces (Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, Marvin Jones) without a true star wideout.
That’s rough, but Lawrence has made due by elevating role players into stardom. Evan Engram had 11 catches for 162 yards and two touchdowns in Week 14. Zay Jones had six for 109 and three scores Sunday. Half of Kirk’s career games with at least 96 receiving yards have happened as a Jaguar and he hasn’t yet been with the team a full year.
This snag by @ckirk 🤩#DALvsJAX on FOX/NFL+ pic.twitter.com/LcGZUcd1FW
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) December 18, 2022
Lawrence is laying the foundation for something special in 2022. Jaguars fans can feel confident this team is trending upward and that if this winter it’s the time for a postseason breakthrough, next season will be. But Duval County may not need to wait because …
The Titans are falling to pieces and Mike Vrabel can't glue them together fast enough
The Indianapolis Colts were a minor threat to the Jaguars’ division title hopes. Whatever concern they posed was erased when Jeff Saturday allowed a 33-0 halftime lead to evaporate in Week 15. Instead of rubbernecking that tragic pileup of off-brand Micro Machines in Indiana, let’s focus on the more surprising collapse four hours south.
The Titans had a 97 percent chance of winning their division as of Thanksgiving. Since then, they’ve fallen from 7-3 to 7-7 and that number is down to 57 percent — still the favorite, but much, much harder to believe in.
There are several factors at play in Tennessee’s collapse. A formidable defense has backslid, allowing 30-plus points per game in the first three losses of that streak.
A shaky offense has been unable to sync its running and passing games; Derrick Henry and Ryan Tannehill rarely have good performances on the same day. That passing attack, already limited, has been further burned by injury to rookie Treylon Burks and the general ineffectiveness of Robert Woods. The Titans have been held to 17 points or fewer in seven of their last nine games.
Tennessee remains a game ahead of Jacksonville in the standings, but the Jaguars control their own destiny. Each team has a game remaining against the Houston Texans this year, which we can probably pencil in as a win despite the 1-12-1 Texans’ efforts in taking the Chiefs to overtime in Week 15. Other than that, the Titans play the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17 and the Jaguars get the New York Jets in Week 16.
This all builds to a Week 18 showdown that will decide the fate of the AFC South if these teams remain a game between each other in the standings. Jacksonville already owns a head-to-head win in Nashville thanks in large part to four forced turnovers. It’s difficult to envision a scenario where, with a playoff berth on the line in Florida, the Jaguars wouldn’t be favored in the rematch.
Tennessee had a clear path to a third-straight division title. Instead, it’s stumbled comically and allowed Jacksonville the latitude to catch up. There’s still plenty of work to be done, but there’s a viable chance the 8-8 Jags host the 8-8 Titans in a primetime game to close out the 2022 campaign.
If Jacksonville wins, it’ll be on the strength of a young team learning on the fly. And a franchise quarterback whose foundation is finally beginning to set after a year-plus of curing.
