JACKSONVILLE — The Jacksonville Jaguars can’t spend much time dwelling on their improbable, unbelievable 22-20 victory at Baltimore Sunday because they host Tennessee Thursday night.
But it will be a long time before they forget it and it may have turned their season around.
Instead of being 2-7, they’re 3-6 and if they beat the Titans, they’ll be 4-6. And if the 4-5 Indianapolis Colts lose at Atlanta next Sunday, the Colts would fall to 4-6 and the two teams would be tied for first place. Granted, they’d be tied with losing records but the Jaguars will take what they can get.
The Jaguars won the game at Baltimore even though their quarterback Blake Bortles was on the ground with time expired and the Jaguars trailing, 20-19.
Bortles was on the ground after taking the snap an instant before the clock expired and falling as he dropped back to pass at the Baltimore 49.
The Jaguars stood around, thinking they had lost. The Ravens were celebrating. The only Raven still playing was linebacker Elvis Dumervil, who ran into the backfield as no Jaguar tried to block him and tackled Bortles after he got up.
In the process, he grabbed his face mask, the Ravens got a 15-yard penalty, the Jaguars got an untimed down and Jason Myers who had earlier missed a 26-yard field goal, hit a 53-yarder to give the Jaguars a 22-20 victory.
But there’s more.
On Monday, the league announced that the Jaguars weren’t set when they snapped the ball and that there should have been a penalty on the Jaguars, a 10-second runoff and the game should have ended there so the face-mask penalty shouldn’t have been called because the game was over.
The strange thing is that the Ravens didn’t complain after the game and the TV telecast didn’t pick up the fact the Jaguars weren’t set. But head coach John Harbaugh said Monday the Jaguars simply didn’t have enough time to get properly set because their receivers had run downfield on the previous play.
Center Stefen Wisniewski, who snapped the ball, said he didn’t know whether his teammates were set. He snapped the ball an instant before the clock ran down to 0:00, which would have ended the game.
Head coach Gus Bradley’s press conference was held before the league made the announcement and he praised his players for getting set.
“We talk about precision and how important it is in the NFL,” he said.
Apparently, they got away with not being precise.
And the Jaguars know they have to be better against Tennessee if they are to beat the Titans.
Bortles did not play well, completing 22 of 45 passes for 188 yards, a pick and a 65.8 passer rating.
On his final two passes, the first could have been intercepted but Kendrick Lewis dropped it. On the final one, he threw a pass to Julius Thomas to the middle of the field with no time outs and the clock kept running when he was tackled.
If the officials had made the right call, they didn’t have enough time to get set.
When Bradley was asked if he’s worried about Bortles being inconsistent, he said, “You’re always looking for consistency.”
He said the key was that the Jaguars won even on a day when their quarterback didn’t play their best.
“I think that’s a valuable lesson for him,” Bradley said so Bortles doesn’t feel like he has to carry the team.
The bottom line is that the Jaguars will go into the Tennessee game with a 3-6 mark instead of a 2-7 mark even though they needed some help from the officials to do it.
REPORT CARD VS. RAVENS
–PASSING OFFENSE: C-minus. It’s not a great day for the quarterback when Blake Bortles’ best play was falling down taking the snap as time expired. Elvis Dumervil got a facemask penalty tackling him that set up Jason Myers’ game-winning 53-yard field goal on an untimed down. Bortles struggled as he had a 65.8 passer rating while throwing for 188 yards and throwing an interception.
–RUSHING OFFENSE: C. T.J. Yeldon averaged only 3.4 yards a carry as he gained just 61 yards in 18 carries. Bortles got 25 yards in two scrambles. Marqise Lee got three yards on an end around and Denard Robinson had one yard on one carry. The Jaguars never got the running game going.
–PASS DEFENSE: C. Even without Steve Smith Sr., Joe Flacco passed for 316 yards and three touchdowns although he also threw for two picks and lost a fumble. The Jaguars didn’t put much pressure on him and got just two sacks even though Flacco had 45 pass attempts.
–RUN DEFENSE: B. The Jaguars held former Jaguar Justin Forsett to just 53 yards in 14 carries as the Jaguars’ run defense held him in check. The run defense has become the strength of the Jaguars’ defense.
–SPECIAL TEAMS: C. Jason Myers won the game with a 53-yard field goal on an untimed down but he also missed a 26-yarder and the special teams gave up 104 yards in return yardage. Bryan Anger had seven punts and didn’t drop any of them inside the 20.
–COACHING: C. The Jaguars got the win on a fluke play and bad non-call by the officials, but they were outplayed much of the game. Head coach Gus Bradley is well-liked by his players but hasn’t seemed to figure out how to get the team to play well on a consistent basis. And cornerback Davon House, a player he benched two weeks ago, had two picks. It could be argued it was a wakeup call or a move by a frustrated coach, but it still seems to be a puzzling move.