Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence escaped a free rusher by sliding left, made a large stride to his right, then delivered the ball as Falcons linebacker Kaelin Elliss smacked him in the chest.
Calvin Ridley was alone in the end zone thirty yards downfield, while cornerback A.J. Terrell rushed to narrow the distance.
The ball, though, arrived first, and Ridley grabbed it out of the air for a touchdown, giving the Jaguars a seven-point lead in the first quarter of their final 23-7 win against the Atlanta Falcons in front of 85,716 people at Wembley Stadium in London.
It was the third touchdown for the Jaguars in their past three games, and the first in the first half.
The Jaguars offence isn’t humming like it was at the conclusion of last season, but they produced huge plays against the Falcons that shown growth.
They shown progress with a vital fourth-down conversion on the lone touchdown drive, a 65-yard, seven-plus-minute drive into the fourth quarter that resulted in a field goal, and a 74-yard, four-minute drive late in the fourth quarter that resulted in another field goal. It wasn’t always lovely, but it was always effective – a continuation of the two weeks before.
“The offence did some good things today,” said Jaguars coach Doug Pederson. “Made some key third-down plays in the second half.” Obviously, the ball was in the 10-yard line on the past two drives. You go down and score a field goal, then the ball is at the six-yard line, you go down and get three, and you end the game the same way.
“There’s still some things we’ve got to work on and clean up, but obviously much better today by the offence.”
The Jaguars (2-2) gained just 300 yards, with another sub-40% third-down conversion rate (five of fourteen, 36%), and averaged only 3.3 yards per run. But it looked better following the previous two games against the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans, in which the offence scored two touchdowns at home.
“It’s a step in the right direction, and it started early this week,” said Christian Kirk, the team’s leading receiver with eight receptions for 84 yards. “We kind of talked about it throughout the week of practise, just our sense of urgency and our execution and discipline.” You had the impression that we were going to get back on track with where we needed to be and just be ourselves, and I believe we did.
“We have a long way to go before we can be considered a really good offence.” There were still some errors and things we didn’t do as well today, but we were able to make enough plays to go out there and score enough points to win.”
The Jaguars lost two offensive players from last season, right tackle Jawaan Taylor and No. 3 receiver Marvin Jones Jr., but they gained Ridley and first-round selection Anton Harrison (to replace Taylor). Press Taylor, the offensive coordinator, oversaw playcalling in the second half of games in 2022 (Pederson did the first) and took over full time in 2023. As a result, the unit has no logical reason to regress.
But that is exactly what has occurred in the first month of the season.
They entered Sunday’s game ranked 16th in overall offence, 21st in scoring, and 29th in third-down conversion rate, after putting up 404 yards against Houston in Week 3 and 31 points against Indianapolis in Week 1.
Over the first three games, the offensive line has struggled, ranking 26th in pass block success rate and 29th in run block win rate. Pass-catchers dropped a league-high eight passes, and Lawrence’s overall QBR of 49.7 is lower than his total QBR of 56.1 last season.
Lawrence finished with a 78.1 QBR after completing 23 of 30 passes for 207 yards and a score against the Falcons. He also rushed for 42 yards on eight attempts. He was sacked twice, but no passes were dropped.
There were a few lost chances, such as Kirk being wide open in the end zone on a fourth down and Kirk breaking free for a possible large gain, but Lawrence couldn’t get the ball to him due to pressure or going to the other side of the field.
“There’s always going to be things that you can do better for all of us each week,” stated Lawrence.
“There’s a tonne more out there for us offensively, a couple plays that I missed that I am kind of kicking myself over, but we’re going to turn the page and go into Buffalo and make the corrections and get ready to put a game plan together to go win that game.”
Kirk said that it is simpler to criticise when one is not grieving a squandered chance.
“Thankfully, we’re sitting on the other side of it with a win,” he said. “Obviously, if we were in a different situation right now, we’d look back on where we shot ourselves in the foot and whatnot, but we were able to make enough plays to get a win today.”
“… When you go back-to-back losses [against the Chiefs and Texans], it weighs really heavy on you, weighs heavy on the locker room. … just great for us to get this thing back on track and get our confidence back.”
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