Jaguars lose to Houston: This is Why

JT: The Four Biggest Problems with the Jaguars in the Houston Game

Many things went wrong for Jacksonville in the game against Houston. We here at JaguarsTalk are going to tell you the biggest four reasons the Texans left The Bank with a nine game winning streak against the Jags. Some of these things are obvious and some have been talked about extensively. One, we are finding, is extremely controversial and we think that curious for reasons we will explain. Enough with the useless intro, let’s get to the meat and potatoes. These reasons are in order from least impactful to the Jaguars loss to most impactful to the Jacksonville’s L.

4. Reason number four is the least responsible for Jacksonville’s loss and it is the fourth down and one foot call, from the shotgun formation. From the shotgun formation? Really? You work so hard for three downs to get a full ten yards and when you get so close (9.9 yards give or take) to your goal you hike the ball several yards backward? In addition to that, Trevor Lawrence will drop back even further erasing every yard you worked to gain the previous three plays. It just makes no sense. What happened to the QB sneak? Trevor is a tall guy, why not use that length to reach for the first? Why not hand the ball off? Hell, if you want to throw it, fine, but at least start Lawrence under center and give the defense more to consider. More to think about and process. Start close to your goal. The shotgun formation on fourth and inches was an abysmal call. 

3. Travon Walker jumping offsides on a Houston 3rd and 20. As if that wasn’t enough, Walker wanted to make sure the Texans got a first down so he continued, practically unabated to the quarterback, and tossed Davis Mills to the ground like a rag doll. You guessed it, 15 additional yards for that one. He was so in the moment he didn’t hear the whistles. We luv ya Travon but play smart man. That drive would have ended in a Houston punt instead of a Texan touchdown, to take the lead. 

2. Trevor Lawrence was “off” all night, except when he was throwing to Derek Stingley Jr.. On that pass he hit my man right in the hands. If you rewatched the play, and how can you not, it is posted on every social media medium known to man, then you will see some glaring problems. The first being it was a fourth and one inside the ten yard line and Trevor was running outside the pocket to pass the ball, making the field smaller with every step. Every step Trevor took decreased the chance of success on this play ten fold. Not loving the call at all. Then, when you rewatch it you will see that Trevor could have easily walked to the first down marker. He was that close, and the nearest defender could not have stopped him. Literally, Jacksonville would have had a fresh set of downs at the five yard line of the Texans. Four additional chances to punch it in for six. Hell, many would argue that Trevor, had he tucked it and run, could have possibly even scored the touchdown himself. I would have argued against that option until I saw how fast and fierce T-Law ran down to the one yard line and nailed Stingley in his tracks, to make the tackle. Now I’m convinced that if you get Lawrence angry enough, as I’m sure he was after he cost his team a touchdown, he turns a slight shade of green and gets a lil’ nasty. And, of course, the final option for that horrible play was simply to throw the ball away. Throw it out of the back of the endzone. I’m not sure how Trevor didn’t see Stingley Jr.. I was there and everyone in that stadium saw him. It was like watching it in slow motion as it left his hand. If I could post a GIF here it would be of Buddy the Elf yelling “NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO” at 0.25 speed.

1. The final, and most controversial, reason the Houston Texans beat the Jacksonville Jaguars 13-6 instead of the Jags winning 45-17 as we so boldly (and very wrongly) predicted was because of the play calling. The play calling caused reason number four, and while it didn’t cause Trevor Lawrence to throw a pick on 2nd and 1 from the Houston six yard line, it certainly put the ball in Trevor’s inaccurate hand at an opportune time of the game. Doug Pederson is a great coach. I actually really like and admire the man. I have read and reread his book FEARLESS so that I could get a better understanding of how the Jags were going to play this year and how he was going to lead them. The one thing I did not get from the book was his dislike for straying from his gameplan. The Jacksonville run game was dominating Houston in the first quarter and most of the first half. The Texans have a subpar rushing defense just waiting to be exploited and Travis Etienne Jr. damn near took it something like 94 yards to the house at one point. ETN was explosive and fast and you felt like he was going to break one at any moment. He was just shy of 80 rushing yards in the first quarter of the game. He gained more in the second quarter but was already being shut down at that point by the offensive play calling. Why? Why did the Jaguars go into halftime tied 6-6 with the worst team in the NFL, knowing that their run game was working very well? They also knew that Trevor Lawrence didn’t have “it” that day, and yet at halftime they made no adjustments. Lawrence wasn’t on his game. It wasn’t his day. On the flip side, ETN was having a career day, having his way with the Houston defense. I understand that the team needs to keep Trevor throwing and learning and maturing throughout the season, but not at the expense of a pivotal, important, divisional dubya. The Jaguars could have won that game pretty easily had the play calling taken the ball out of Trevor Lawrence’s hands, and bad decision making, and handed it off to ETN or James Robinson (though Travis had the hot hand on this day). It’s amazing how we can easily see that one running back has the hot hand over another, yet we can’t see that the QB isn’t having his best day. Doug Pederson’s lack of run calling in the second half of this game and his refusal to adapt and overcome, is the main reason the Jags lost Sunday’s game. The buck stops with the Head Coach.

The reason this is so controversial puzzles me. I have disagreed with many sports prognosticators about Sunday’s play calling but the best story was driving home from the game listening to the Doug Pederson’s press conference while my wife read me my tweets. She was reading one that questioned my knowledge by saying that I was completely wrong about running the ball more and that Pederson called the game exactly as he should have. The best part about this story is that at the exact same time she was reading me this tweet, Doug Pederson live in his presser said, “It’s on me. I should’ve run the ball more.” We both just looked at each other and laughed. I obviously quickly looked back at the road since, well, I was driving.

Let me know what you all think of these reasons and if you think there were more in the comment section below.