The atmosphere inside TIAA Bank Field for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ home game against the Dallas Cowboys Sunday afternoon was electric.
The upstart Jags had been playing good football heading in, winning three of their previous five games. At 10-3 on the season, Dallas has been a draw on the road through 14 weeks. That was once again the case in Duval with a ton of ‘Boys fans showing up for this surprisingly big mid-December game.
When all was said and done, Jacksonville came out on top in thrilling fashion with a 40-34 overtime win following a pick-six of Dak Prescott in overtime.
Doug Pederson’s squad found itself down 27-10 with less than four minutes remaining in the third quarter. That’s when Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, in the midst of a tremendous run, did his thing. He led Jacksonville on three consecutive touchdown-scoring drives to take the lead.
While Dallas would end up going up by a field goal with just over three minutes remaining, Lawrence overcame a late-game lost fumble to lead the Jags to a game-tying field goal. The rest was history.
By virtue of this win, Jacksonville finds itself 6-8 on the season and just one game behind the struggling Tennessee Titans in the AFC South with three games remaining. If the Jags win out, they’ll win the division and host a wild card game in the playoffs. Here’s a look at three reasons why we need this to happen.
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Trevor Lawrence is the next great thing
Dating back to his freshman season with Clemson when the quarterback beat out Kelly Bryant for the Tigers’ starting job back in 2018, Lawrence has been seen as a generational quarterback. Through the first 22 games of his NFL career, Lawrence did not look the part.
He threw 20 touchdowns against 21 interceptions while losing eight fumbles during that span. Since then, Lawrence has flipped the script in a big way. Including his four-touchdown outing against Dallas, the youngster has played brilliant football over the course of Jacksonville’s past nine games.
- Trevor Lawrence stats (Weeks 6-15): 67% completion, 2,288 yards, 16 TD, 3 INT, 100.7 QB rating
It’s not a coincidence that the Jaguars find themselves at 4-5 during this nine-game span with four wins in their past six outings. To put this into perspective, Jacksonville posted an 8-38 record in their previous 46 games prior to this recent stretch.
The NFL world needs this iteration of Lawrence in the playoffs, leading to a potential ascension up the rankings of elite young signal callers.
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Tennessee Titans provide us nothing of substance
After starting the season out with a 7-3 record, Tennessee has lost four consecutive games. This span has seen Mike Vrabel’s squad score a total of 62 points after falling to the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday.
Ryan Tannehill is a shell of his former self. He was also injured during Sunday’s loss with rookie Malik Willis taking over briefly before the veteran returned to the mix. No one wants to see a raw Willis play in the playoffs. It just wouldn’t be good football, especially with Todd Downing calling plays in Nashville.
One game ahead of Jacksonville for the top spot in the AFC, Tennessee would currently host the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Wild Card round. That has all of the looks of an all-time stinker. Instead, having Lawrence go up against former NFL MVP Lamar Jackson would be full of storylines.
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Jacksonville Jaguars hosting home playoff game would be elite
There’s no reason to call out fans of other teams. Instead, let’s just focus on Duval. Despite the Jaguars being largely irrelevant from a broader NFL perspective for the better part of the past 15 years, these fans bring it on a weekly basis.
We saw that first-hand on Sunday despite Cowboys’ partisans also making their presence known in Jacksonville. It made for an electric, playoff-like atmosphere.
Now, imagine TIAA Bank Field hosting a playoff game between these Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens. Heck, it would be a blast if Justin Herbert and his Chargers headed to Duval for a mid-January game. Two young quarterbacks going at it with a trip to the divisional playoffs on the line.
For the Jacksonville Jaguars, it’s now all about continuing the momentum from Sunday. They have games against struggling squads in that of the New York Jets and Houston Texans before what could be a win-or-go-home regular-season home finale against the Titans.