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For the first time this season, the Jacksonville Jaguars entered the locker room with a halftime lead against the heavily favored Arizona Cardinals. A 109-yard return on a missed kick from Jamal Agnew, the longest play in NFL history, set the team up with a 13-7 lead with two quarters left to be played, and it even expanded that lead to nine early in the second half.
But the Jaguars couldn’t sustain their level of play. The defense that had been sharp all game began to slip up, and the offense struggled to avoid turnovers. Arizona eventually pulled away for a 31-19 victory that feels like the most frustrating loss for the Jags yet.
Here are some observations and takeaways from how this one played out as Jacksonville moves to 0-3 on the young season.
Robinson finds his footing but Lawrence catches the turnover bug again
Unlike in the first two weeks, the Jaguars actually found some sustained success on offense in this game, and that was in large part due to the play of the run game, particularly James Robinson. He has had a bit of a slow start to the year, but he saw a season-high in carries against the Cardinals with 15, which he took for 88 yards and a touchdown.
Paired with solid contributions from Carlos Hyde and Trevor Lawrence, the team earned 159 yards on the ground. Unfortunately, things were less smooth when Jacksonville took to the air.
Like last week, Lawrence got off to a fairly quick start. He threw an early interception on a tipped ball that should have been caught by Jacob Hollister, but he responded well after, leading a touchdown drive that he capped off with a fantastic throw to D.J. Chark Jr., whose equally impressive footwork brought it down in bounds.
But like last week, mistakes kept Lawrence from sustaining that level of play. Leading 19-17 in the third quarter, the Jaguars dialed up a flea-flicker. It was a questionable call given the ground success they were having, and the pocket didn’t hold up for Lawrence, who fired an ill-advised pass off his back foot.
It was easily intercepted by Byron Murphy Jr., who also caught the pass off the tip earlier. Jacksonville had another drive going while trailing by 12 late in the game, but Lawrence lost the ball when his hand hit Robinson’s helmet.
Lawrence took a step forward on Sunday in some ways, but his mistakes continue to prove to be costly.
Defense runs out of steam late
While the offense is certainly not doing much to carry its weight, the defense has been the biggest concern through the first two weeks of the season. Facing an MVP-caliber quarterback in Kyler Murray, many expected that it would struggle mightily on Sunday.
But it didn’t. The unit fared quite well, especially in the first half. Murray led an early scoring drive that culminated with him finishing it himself on a short rollout run, but he didn’t have tremendous success through the air. He only had 107 passing yards at the break, and on his first possession of the second half, he tossed an interception.
But he eventually figured out the Jaguars’ defense, and while he didn’t connect for a passing touchdown, he did make a lot of plays through the air, finishing 28-of-34 for 316 yards. The Jags had no answer for receivers A.J. Green and Christian Kirk, who both reached the 100-yard mark, and James Conner gashed them in the red zone, scoring two touchdowns.
Without starting cornerback CJ Henderson available, the defense did a very good job of slowing down a high-paced Cardinals offense for the majority of the game, and it contained Murray’s legs, only allowing 19 yards on seven carries for the speedy quarterback. But with the offense not coming through, that success couldn’t last forever, and the defense eventually started to break down by the end.
Still, it was a performance that should still be at least somewhat encouraging considering what Arizona has done offensively so far this season.
Other notes
- Safety Andrew Wingard has been heavily maligned this season, but he had a very solid game against the Broncos last week and continued to play well on Sunday. He notched the team’s first takeaway of the season by intercepting Murray, and he also had seven tackles. Andre Cisco is still likely the future at free safety, but Wingard deserves credit for the way he’s played the last couple of weeks.
- Lawrence spread the ball around quite a bit today. For the third week in a row, Marvin Jones Jr. was the leading receiver with 62 yards on six catches, while Chark and Laviska Shenault Jr. had four catches each for 49 and 48 yards, respectively. Meanwhile, Robinson also made an impact in the passing game, making six catches for 46 yards. Look for Lawrence to try to find the backs in the passing game more frequently moving forward. However, tight ends Jacob Hollister and Luke Farrell only saw three catches combined for 14 yards total.
- Tyson Campbell got the start at cornerback in Henderson’s absence, and while he did give up a big first down on the Arizona scoring drive that ultimately put the game out of reach, he was solid otherwise. He had eight tackles and a pass breakup.
- I’m not sure what’s going on with kicker Josh Lambo, but the Jaguars have to figure it out soon. Lambo missed two extra points on Sunday, and he continued a rough start to the season that has also seen him go 0-of-3 on field-goal attempts. The Jags brought in competition for Lambo this offseason, but he remains the only kicker on the roster at this moment in time, and that is likely to change.
- Jamal Agnew has proven to be a massive free-agent acquisition. He’s one of the NFL’s best returners, and he followed up a 102-yard kick return touchdown last week with a 109-yard score today on the kick-six. He’s a game-changer, and teams likely won’t be kicking to him much moving forward.
- Tackle Cam Robinson left the game in the third quarter with a shoulder injury and was listed as questionable to return. Luckily for the Jags, he was able to go back into the game. All in all, the offensive line did a decent job of protecting Lawrence, but it did give up two sacks. One of those sacks was very fast as right guard A.J. Cann was beaten badly at the snap.