Jacksonville certainly has an uphill climb to get back into position to compete for a playoff spot. Coming off an 1-15 season that saw the team land the first overall pick, the Jags will need Trevor Lawrence to have a similar effect to the one Andrew Luck had on the Indianapolis Colts when he took them to the playoffs as a rookie.
Luckily for the Jaguars, they won’t have to face a particularly difficult schedule to do it. Based on the final 2020 standings, Jacksonville’s schedule ranks just 18th in the NFL in terms of difficulty. It was a big winner from the league’s decision to expand to 17 regular-season games, as that dropped its strength-of-schedule seven spots from 11th.
In addition to their usual divisional opponents, the Jaguars face every team in the NFC West and AFC East, and they also have matchups against the Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons. Their average opponent win percentage from last season is .491.
Though this is just a projection and there’s no way to know how difficult Jacksonville’s schedule will end up being, it seems like it could be conducive to a major step forward for the team in 2021.