Jaguars over Saints w/Steelers on the Horizon

JT: There’s a reason this column is so late

It isn’t my fault, unless you count the fact that it is. I had family visiting and therefore couldn’t tear myself away to write about the crazy Thursday night game when the Jaguars attempted to give away a dubya to New Orleans in the waning seconds of the fourth quarter. Credit where credit is due, this victory would not live in the Jacksonville win column if not for the hard work, dedication, attention to detail and butter fingers of Saints tight end, Foster Moreau. Maybe if his arms were just a little longer. (Epiphany moment) Maybe that’s why Trent Baalke selected Travon Walker over Aidan “T-Rex Arms” Hutchinson. See folks, long arms are, in fact, important in the NFL (I can’t even stay afloat in my own sarcasm). “Poor kid,” I thought for less than half a split second when he dropped that touchdown pass that would have put the Saints in position to tie or win the game with almost no time left on the clock. Frankly, I believe that had the Saints scored that TD, they would have gone for two, and gotten it. Our defense was smoked by the end of that game. Hell, the Saints held the ball for almost the entirety of the third quarter and ran over 80 plays on offense. That’s practically two games worth of offensive plays against a team playing their fourth game in 19 days with travel to and from, not only New Orleans on a short week, but also from across the pond. Now, before you Bills mafia goofballs start whining about how I said you couldn’t use jet lag as your excuse for losing to the Jags, Iet me point out that while jet lag may exist, the Jaguars didn’t lose. That felt good to type. Your Jags are 5-2 with a most impressive four game winning streak on the line as they travel to Heinz Field to take on the Pittsburgh Steelers. Heinz Field which, I come to find out, is called Acrisure Stadium? What in the hell is an Acrisure? It’s a horrible name for any company let alone an insurance company located in Michigan. It sounds like a disease. “Julie, I can’t make it tonight, my results came back and as we feared, I’ve got Acrisure.” Just bring back Three Rivers. This naming rights stuff is getting out of control. Anyway, our Jags will be heading up to Acrisure Three Rivers, to play the Steelers, but not before we point out some glaringly wonderful things about your Jacksonville Jaguars.

First and foremost, after an abysmal division loss, at Everbank Stadium (again we need to address naming rights) to the Houston Texans, your Jaguars could have tucked tail on their flight to Wembley and crapped the bed all over the English countryside. They easily could have thrown up their bangers and mash and traditional English breakfasts as easily as they could have thrown in the towel on this NFL season. That is how bad the loss to the Houston Texans felt (at least to the fans). Tangentially, British food is horrible. They have pigs there, right? So how can they screw up bacon so badly? And warm beer? Nothing quenches my thirst better on a hot summer day than a room temperature mug filled to the brim with a frothy, tepid libation. “Luke warm” should never describe ANY alcoholic beverage. Freakin’ Luke, and freakin’ British food. And, I’m of British heritage for chrissakes. Clean up your act England, you know your cuisine is bad when the UK’s most popular meal is an Indian dish (chicken tikka masala). Okay, so upon further research it may be that this meal was, in fact, invented in Britain, but by a Bangladeshi chef, if we are to trust Wikipedia. Trust in Wikipedia folks is a slippery slope, but not as slippery as tight end, Foster Moreau’s hands (cue the corny joke drum beat). That kid should be on some kind of “watch” at this point. Imagine what Jimmy Dugan (I know you know who I’m talking about) would have said about this kid balling his eyes out on the sideline after the game. There’s no crying in baseball professional football. I mean, my god people. Although, there exists one allowable exception to this unwritten rule. See Knowshon Moreno on the Broncos sideline in 2013 during the National Anthem. That will never get old. As an aside, when you rewatch this beautiful display of tearful patriotism, and you should right now (why am I always asking people to leave my columns), check out the chyron at the bottom of the video (TV screen). It is showing the final score and highlights of the Jags/Browns game (Jags 32 - Browns 28). Henne went 22 of 40 for 195 w/2 TDs & 1INT. I think we might be a little better off these days. Alright, what in the hell are we talking about?

So Christian Kirk had himself a day against the Saints, if only because of that beautiful 30 plus yard run after the catch to score the game winning touchdown, which Al Michaels is still confused about. So many tangents today, but here is another. Al Michaels is the worst sports caster in the world. John Madden currently has more enthusiasm than Al Michaels (Ohhh, you think I went too far there, well I don’t think I went far enough). Al Michaels acts as if he is heavily engrossed in a Matlock marathon while a football game happens to be going on in his periphery. He joins the NFL broadcast only during his “programs” commercials to spew his near comatose, ignorant, and apathetic ramblings. Michaels then quickly retreats back into his Murder She Wrote shell forcing Kirk Herbstreit to attempt to save the broadcast with actual football acumen. Do better Amazon Prime. You are forcing us to subscribe and stream Thursday Night Football, yet you hire a play-by-play announcer who thinks streaming has to do with a flowing body of water.

Folks, this is getting long winded already and the Steelers game is around the corner. I don’t want to squander what little attention span you have left, so I‘ll sum up the Saints game like this. We crushed them for the entirety of three and a half quarters and then we went to bed (much like Al Michaels’ enthusiasm). Our Defense is “him.” Josh Allen is getting paid a lot of money by some team, somewhere, at the end of this season, and it better be by Jacksonville. Shad, are you reading this? It better be by Jacksonville. Without Tyson Campbell, Mr. Buster Brown, rookie CB, was put on an island against Saints wide receivers all night. When the game was on the line, Buster busted up the fourth down, would be touchdown pass, leaving the Saints to go marching in…to their locker room hanging their heads in defeat. As the McDonalds commercials say, don’t get it twisted, New Orleans ain’t great. They are an average NFL team this year. That said, it is difficult to win in the NFL, unless you have Patrick Mahomes and Taylor Swift on your team (I hate myself a little bit for even including her in my column). The game was at the super loud Superdome, where Trevor Lawrence had both of his two collegiate losses. And then, 4 games in 19 days, lots of injuries blah blah blah…This sounds like a bunch of reasons Bill Mafia fans would come up with to justify why their team keeps losing, except that these are reasons explaining why the Jags victories are that much more impressive.

After a 10 day rest, sort of a mini-bye week, The Black and Teal find themselves in PA to face Mike Tomlin’s surging Steelers. Pittsburgh is 4-2 and believing that they are a decent team. They are not. They are as mediocre as the Saints, but again, the NFL has a way of humbling good teams, and make no mistake, the Jacksonville Jaguars are a good team. JagsTalk had Trevor and the boys heading into their bye week at 6-2 and one of those wins was against Ben Roethlisberger’s boys. Wait, retired? Who is their QB now? Kenny Pickett? Folks, all kidding aside, I am looking at the depth chart for the Pittsburgh Steelers and we should win this game. The problem is that Pittsburgh is coming off of two very big wins against better teams. They beat the Baltimore Ravens 17-10 and then the LA Rams 24-17, in LA. All of Pittsburgh’s wins have been within one score however, while their losses (to the 49ers and Texans) have been embarrassing blowouts. So, I’ve deduced that if you let Big Ben or Kenny Pickett hang around, they seem to pull out the dub. Jacksonville has been preaching fast starts all season long. This is a very opportune time in which to employ that strategy. Let’s just not do like what we did in NOLA and allow Al Michaels’ insentient commentating to lull our defense to sleep in the fourth quarter. Jacksonville may have D-lineman, and 335 lb block of run stuffing muscle, DaVon Hamilton back. Maybe shut down corner, Tyson Campbell will return. Most importantly Big Play Zay could start again. Zay Jones may be WR3, but I can not illustrate (cause I’m bad at drawing) how important Zay Jones is to this offense. He makes defenses pay for doubling up on Kirk and Ridley. If they don’t pay attention to Zay he makes acrobatic catches at opportune times. If they do pay attention to Zay, well then Kirk and Ridley wreak havoc on opposing teams’ defensive backfields. With Zay back in the lineup, Pittsburgh will have their hands full. I foresee a big day for Ridley this coming week. He needs a bounce back performance and if Zay is healthy then he will draw coverage from Calvin. For all the good that Jamal Agnew does for this Jacksonville team, he is just not the WR that is Zay Jones. But if not for Agnew’s punt return against the Saints then we may not have won that game.

I want to quickly highlight a few defensive players that have had extraordinary games as of late. D. Will, Cisco, Jenkins, Buster Brown, Foye Oluokun, oh my goodness he is a pro bowler - Gwen Stefani style (Let it marinate…No Doubt), and Devin Lloyd. These jokers have just flat out performed. They are the backbone of this defense, and this defense is why the Jaguars are winning. It will also be the reason the Jags win in Pittsburgh. They will shut down Najee Harris and the Steelers run game and force Ben Roeth - Kenny Pickett to beat them with his arm. If Josh Allen keeps up the pressure I smell some more take aways from the team leading the league in turnovers thus far. It was always the Jags. Let us know what you think in the comment section below.