Before the season, Khan and Caldwell said a winning season constitutes a "reasonable expectation." With today's loss, a winning season went from reasonable to officially impossible. The script was familiar. My thoughts:
1. While Bortles gets kudos for toughing it out despite an obvious injury to his shoulder, he still remains the biggst mystery and disappointment on this team-quite possibly in team history. I don't recall ever seeing a regression quite this bad-certainly for any Jaguars' QB. I don't know if he has been playing with some undisclosed injury all season, he blew off coaching, the team isnt coaching him, properly or what, but I don't think any Jaguars fan watching him now, vs. when he arrived as a rookie and watching him last year can still believe they are watching the same guy. The overwhelming majority of his completions were dumpoffs, and him throwing downfield was rare and cringe inducing, including yet another pick six, the 10th of his career. I wish Bortles-the real Bortles-could return to us. Granted I haven't spoken to a single player in that locker room, but I can't imagine any of them honestly having any confidence in Bortles at this stage.
2. Last week, Senderrick Marks lambasted the coaching staff for his lack of playing time. Today, Marks had a pretty good game. He had the deflected extra point, he hustled downfield to make a tackle and flashed another time. But in typical #becausejaguars fashion, he jumped offsides in the last possession of the game, allowing Detroit to run out the clock. He knows better than that, and his penalty ruined what otherwise might have been a redemptive game.
3. Marqise Lee has received a lot of criticism from fans, media and coaches during his time here. But thus far this year, in a huge surprise, he has been the Jaguars' most consistent WR this year. His TD catch was a thing of beauty. It's too bad Bortles and the rest of the passing game has disappeared.
4. Chris Ivory was another guy who would have had a good game, but for a fumble on a solid tackle by the Lions' DB. Jacksonville was leading 3-0 at the time and was in Lions' territory. Had he not fumbled, who knows how this game plays out. Maybe the Jaguars go up 10-0. This was the kind of performance I was hoping to see out of him at the beginning of the year, but his fumble today and the one against Kansas City killed this team.
5. To be honest, I was kinda surprised to see Telvin Smith out there today following the murder of his brother. Overall he seemed to play a good game, but I am left to wonder what his responsibilities were on that 62 yard pass to Eric Ebron late in the game. I don't know if he had underneath responsibility, or if he was supposed to cover Ebron all the way.
6. For the life of me, I don't know why or how special teams' coach Mallory has avoided responsibility for his unit's poor play throughout his tenure here when both the offensive and defensive coordinators have seen change. In each of Bradley's years here, the special teams have had long stretches of disastrous play that have killed this team. This year, we've seen muffs/fumbles of punts for 3-4 straight weeks, long punt returns the last two weeks-this time for a TD, and to top things off, the first miss of an extra point by Myers.
7. Rookie watch:
A. Jalen Ramsey-had what I thought was another good game. He had what most people saw as a strip of Boldin on the first series of the game negated by a ref's whistle. His look of frustration on the sidelines late endeared him to a lot of fans here, because it shows he cares and is not quitting. He represents one of the few bright spots on this team.
B. Myles Jack-saw him on special teams and a few defensive snaps. I still don't understand why he isn't getting more playing time.
C. Yannnick Ngakoue-beat the Lions' rookie LT on several plays, including a half sack he shared with Fowler. It's been a long time since we've heard from him.
D. Sheldon Day-Did not see much of him.
E. Brandon Allen-DNP
8. Nice to have a Dante Fowler sighting without any mind numbingly stupid penalties.
9. Abry Jones played a very good game. In fact, to me, his game today was more impactful than any game Roy Miller played that I can recall.
10. Man, has Parnell become a liability for us.
11. Man, has Julius Thomas also become a non factor.
12. This was the worst game, injury wise, this team has had in a while.
Bottom line: I'm sick of this losing. Even when the team plays relatively "well," this team manages to shoot itself in the foot enough to lose. There were opportunities for this team to take control of this game, but gave up scores in all three phases of the game. This team is too talented to lose this consistently. I understand that season tickets don't come with a guarantee of wins or winning seasons. But for all intents and purposes, losing games and losing seasons are virtual guarantees for Jaguars fans. It shouldn't have to be this way.
Worst to 1st. Curse Reversed!
