When watching the Jacksonville Jaguars and Seattle Seahawks on Sunday afternoon, it was hard to believe one team was coming off 14 days rest and the other was coming off six days rest.
What made it so hard to believe is that the Jaguars, coming off their bye week, looked completely out of sorts, unprepared, and simply too small for the moment against a Seahawks team that had just gotten beat in a physical game on Monday Night Football.
After a week of the Jaguars talking about their restored confidence from their Week 6 win, the air was let out of the balloon on Sunday as the Seahawks throttled the Jaguars 31-7 on the road.
The Jaguars’ offense got off to a good enough start on its first drive, but third-down issues once again led to no first-drive points. The Jaguars haven’t scored a touchdown on the first drive of a game since Week 2 and this continued on Sunday despite a 14-yard gain from James Robinson and a third-down conversion from Dan Arnold putting the Jaguars at the middle of the field.
Despite this, the Seahawks were able to put the Jaguars behind the chains on third-down. On 3rd-and-9, the Jaguars put the ball in Lawrence’s hand before a Darrell Taylor pressure forced him out of the pocket and into the grasp of Seahawks’ safety Ryan Neal, resulting in an 11-yard loss and a punt.
The Seahawks’ offense gashed the Jaguars for 28 yards on four carries to start their first drive, though the two biggest plays came in the passing game. A questionable roughing the passer call on DaVon Hamilton and a 27-yard catch by Tyler Lockett put the Seahawks at the one-yard line. Jacksonville stuffed three-straight runs by Seattle at the one until a quarterback sneak from Geno Smith on 4th-and-goal let the Seahawks draw first blood.
The Jaguars didn’t get anything going in their response to Smith’s touchdown, either. After a five-yard gain by Marvin Jones on first down, the Jaguars punted after three plays due to a Laviska Shenault drop on third down.
Luckily, the Jaguars’ defense came alive with a stop of their own as an answer. Shaquill Griffin spent the week talking about his fondness for his time in Seattle but for his eagerness to play his former team, and he answered the challenge. On 3rd-and-7, Griffin covered D.K. Metcalf with tight coverage in man-to-man, tackling him right as he made a catch and stopping him two yards short of the first-down to force a punt.
Jacksonville failed to make the Seahawks retreat at any point from an offensive standpoint, though, especially when they attempted to call deep shots down the field. After a few deep shots fell incomplete to start the game, Lawrence went deep for Tavon Austin on 1st-and-10 from the 50.
The duo wasn’t on the same page, however. Lawrence seemingly expected Austin to cut his route to the sideline, but Lockett continued downfield, creating an easy interception by Quandre Diggs. The Seahawks then began to pour it on.
After the Jaguars were hurt by Smith on the first few drives, the veteran backup turned it up following the turnover. Smith completed his first 10 passes for 93 yards and one touchdown, capping off the post-turnover drive with a 16-yard fade to Metcalf over Griffin in the right corner the end zone for a touchdown.
The Jaguars’ offense attempted to put the gas to the peddle without James Robinson on the field following his first-quarter injury, but they didn’t find any results. Lawrence slipped on second-down while attempting a throw to Arnold, and then Lawrence and Agnew failed to connect on an open third-down conversion.
Just as they have been over the first six games, the Jaguars didn’t take a fourth-down for no. On 4th-and-6 from the Seattle 39, the Jaguars asked Lawrence to find an open receiver. Instead, Lawrence barely heaved a pass up as a meager incompletion as the pressure came in on him.
The Seahawks turned the fourth-down turnover into another pair of points, this time a chip-shot field goal by Jason Meyers despite a Josh Allen sack in the red-zone. This was due in large part due to the Jaguars allowing Smith to complete all 14 of his first 14 pass attempts, with the first incompletion of the second-half being wiped away by a Jihad Ward roughing the passer call in the red-zone.
The Jaguars entered halftime trailing 17-0, with the Seahawks simply looking like the better team in every facet. Smith finished the first-half 14-of-15 for 137 yards as the Jaguars totaled just one sack. The Jaguars had several instances of looking unprepared, calling timeouts twice due to potential delays of game and one due to having 12 men on the field for the defense during a red-zone possession.
After a week in which the Jaguars preached about their lack of a margin for error, the team shot itself in the foot consistently. Six penalties for 52 yards consistent of two toughing the passer calls and helped neuter the Jaguars’ defense before they finally recorded a three-and-out to open the second-half, with Dawuane Smoot sacking Smith on third-down.
The Jaguars’ offense did little to look more prepared during the second-half, however. After looking completely disjointed and one-dimensional following Robinson’s ankle injury, the Jaguars’ offense looked like a mess to start the third-quarter. After a strange call to hand it to Carlos Hyde on 3rd-and-7 (which predictably didn’t get a first down), the Jaguars went for it on 4th-and-3 from the Seahawks’ 38.
Lawrence’s off game continued, though, with the rookie passing up a chance to scramble for the first-down but missing an open Shenault at the first-down marker, throwing the ball low. The Jaguars didn’t look like they had any actual plan or strategy to get the first-down, and the execution reflected this.
The Jaguars’ offense as a whole was disastrous on Sunday, especially following Robinson’s injury. At one point in the third quarter, Lawrence had seven incompletions in a row, with the Jaguars failing to find any sort of rhythm in their passing game. Add in the offense’s lack of cohesiveness to the fact that both the defense and special teams had penalty issues, and it is hard to believe the Jaguars were coming off a bye week.
The lack of preparedness continued on the next drive, too. The Jaguars’ defense looked out of sorts completely on the second drive of the half, with defenders looking confused at the snap or still attempting to communicate the play-call to the rest of the unit as the offense was already moving the ball. This included on one third-down, with nobody covering Lockett out of the slot as the Jaguars were slow to process their blitz call.
This all culminated in another Seahawks’ touchdown to Metcalf, once again with Griffin in coverage. And with the Seahawks in a 24-0 lead midway through the third-quarter, Seattle hit the sim button, simply running the ball and draining clock until it mercifully ended, though they did find the end-zone once again in the fourth-quarter when Travis Homer forced a missed tackle by Dakota Allen on an onside kick, running the return back 42 yards for a touchdown.
The Jaguars needed their passing game to step up following the injury to Robinson, but a mix of penalties, drops, and miscommunications doomed the unit. Lawrence completed seven of his first nine passes before missing eight of his 11, with the unit going over 12 minutes in game time without a first-down. The Jaguars didn’t score until a Agnew reception from Lawrence with under two minutes left.
The last three Jaguars’ games were defined by the Jaguars’ and Lawrence’s improvement in the passing game, but Sunday was a game marred by a lack of execution. Whether it was receiver issues, Lawrence’s own errors, or the offense as a whole not looking right from the start, Sunday wasn’t a step in the right direction for Jacksonville.
It doesn’t help that the Jaguars’ offense was completely neutered, either, with the offense attempting just one pass over 20 yards in the first three quarters — Lawrence’s interception. The Jaguars couldn’t move the ball on the ground and the offense had no energy or rhythm, leading to a four-quarter slop fest.
Lawrence finished Sunday 32-of-53 for for 238 yards (4.5 yards per pass), one interception and one touchdown. Overall, the Jaguars recorded just 309 yards of offense. Their two longest plays (17 and 14 yard gains) were from James Robinson, who didn’t even play the final three quarters. From start to finish, it was an out-of-the-ordinary and unorganized beatdown, with the team not finding the red-zone until with fewer than 3:00 left in the game.
Defensively, the Jaguars had little to be happy about. Smith finished the game completing 20-of-24 for 195 yards and two touchdowns, though the Jaguars held the Seahawks to 69 yards rushing on 25 carries (2.8 yards per carry), with 28 of those yards coming on the first drive.
Moving forward, the Jaguars will need to solve their penalty issues after being flagged 11 times for 84 yards, with the offensive, defense, and special teams all getting into penalty trouble throughout the game. Until the Jaguars learn to play with more consistency at the fundamentals, they will struggle.
The Jaguars (1-6) will next host the 5-2 Buffalo Bills at TIAA Bank Field, with the Jaguars looking for their first win at TIAA Bank since Week 1 of 2020.
