JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For a split second, it appeared as if the Jacksonville Jaguars would let yet another opportunity against their AFC South rival Houston Texans slip through their fingers.
Both teams had slogged through a largely unsightly, penalty-plagued, punt-heavy affair Sunday afternoon at EverBank Stadium and the hosting Jaguars clung to a one-score lead five minutes and change into the fourth quarter when the slippage occurred.
Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw one of the most mind-bending interceptions, and on the very next play his Texans counterpart C.J. Stroud connected on a 50-yard touchdown pass to a wide-open Nico Collins (taking advantage of a blown coverage) to tie the game at 10-10. Suddenly, the Texans — back-to-back AFC South champs, winners in their last seven trips to Jacksonville and 13 of the last 15 games in the series — appeared to have dramatically swung the momentum in their direction and pulled within striking distance of their first victory of the season.
But as quickly as the shift occurred, things swung back in the Jaguars’ favor. A fumble at the end of another Collins catch-and-run.
A 46-yard strike from Lawrence to wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. — the longest offensive play of the day for Jacksonville.
A 10-yard Travis Etienne Jr. touchdown run.
A diving game-sealing interception by Jaguars safety Antonio Johnson in the shadow of his team’s goal line with 20 seconds left on the clock.
Victory formation.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Jaguars certainly will take the 17-10 triumph, which improved their record to 2-1 (their best start since 2022) and dropped the Texans’ record to 0-3 (Houston’s worst start since 2018).
Although not even a quarter of the way through the season, the jubilance displayed by the Jaguars resembled that of a playoff victory. Given the Texans’ string of dominance, the agony of last season’s 4-13 Jaguars campaign and the way that they had to scratch and claw for every shred of positivity Sunday, the high emotions were understandable. And so too was the somber nature that engulfed the Texans in the visiting locker room.
There’s plenty of football left in the season. But Sunday’s victory felt like the type that could propel a young team forward as a coaching staff and players work to erase a losing culture. Meanwhile, the game signaled reasons for legitimate concerns in Houston. With Jacksonville now 2-1, Indianapolis owning a surprising 3-0 record and Houston sharing the divisional basement with also winless Tennessee, it feels like a shift is afoot within the AFC South.
Defensive end Josh Hines-Allen, who hit Stroud’s arm on his final pass, making Johnson’s interception possible, became emotional in the locker room while addressing his teammates. He described Sunday’s contest as “a take-it game,” and praised the approach taken by his teammates while also predicting the game will serve as a springboard for the long-suffering Jaguars.
“It’s so hard to win in the National Football League,” Hines-Allen said. “The mentality that we had coming into this week was, ‘We’ve got to take it.’ Last week we let that (31-27 loss to Cincinnati) slip away and we didn’t take it. Here was another opportunity for us to go get it, and so for us to go out there and prove who we are, the type of team we do have — we’re building something very special here. We’ve got to keep capitalizing off that. Yes, I was very emotional. Huge win against a good team, nevertheless, but it’s just a great building point.”
Josh Hines-Allen celebrates a sack with Dawuane Smoot. Hines-Allen finished with three QB hits on the day. (Morgan Tencza / Imagn Images)
If the Jaguars, who travel to San Francisco to play the 49ers next Sunday, are indeed to build on the Houston victory, they’ll need to sharpen their focus, particularly when it comes to penalties (they entered Sunday’s game with 17, which was tied with Houston for fifth-most in the league, and committed seven more) and unforced errors like dropped passes (the Jaguars led the league with nine entering Sunday’s contest and committed six more drops against the Texans).
They’ll need greater consistency out of Lawrence, who has completed only 58.9 percent of his passes (28th in the NFL) and sports a passer rating of 77.9 (also 28th). And coach Liam Coen and his assistants need to figure out how to orchestrate a more consistent rushing attack. They thought the ground game would rank among the strengths of the offense after their team rushed for 200 yards in the season opener. But the numbers have steadily decreased to 139 rushing yards in Week 2 and only 86 against Houston.
Fortunately for the Jaguars, their defense is highly effective and versatile. On Sunday, they managed to harass Stroud while primarily rushing four defenders and dropping the other seven into pass coverage. And through three games, the Jaguars lead the league with nine takeaways, and Coen believes that kind of backing will position the offense to take strides forward.
“The fact that we take the ball away as much as we have gives us so many opportunities to go and have extra possessions,” the coach said. “You talk about finishing a game the right way. It was not pretty, it was not for us offensively, but we can take, and we should take, a ton of confidence from this to go clean up, we got to clean up the mistakes, play better and work on the drops and all that, but, man, I’m really proud of this group and the way they competed and finished this game.”
At the same time that Coen gushed about his squad, Texans coach DeMeco Ryans did his best to keep his players’ spirits up, maintaining that Houston isn’t far off from regaining the effectiveness that made the team a contender the last two seasons.
“We’re close,” Ryans said after the game. “That’s what it is. We’re close, but close isn’t good enough. So we have to pick it up and find a way to get a win.”
Players such as Stroud echoed Ryans’ sentiments. However, it’s hard to look at the continued offensive line struggles and the frequency at which their young quarterback is either running for his life or completely engulfed in a gang of pass-rushers and feel like Houston is close to turning a corner.
One of the most-sacked quarterbacks in each of the two previous seasons, Stroud needed Houston brass to invest heavily in the offensive line this offseason. The Texans did bring in bodies while also shipping off the talented left tackle Laremy Tunsil to free up cap space. But none of those players have performed like upgrades. On Sunday, the Texans’ offensive line committed five penalties while also surrendering two sacks and six quarterback hits. The line has also paved the way for just one 100-yard rushing day in three games.
And the Texans rank among the most heavily penalized teams in the league, which only further hampers the efforts of an offense that ranks dead last in the NFL on third downs (24.2 percent success rate).
Despite peering out of an 0-3 hole after three consecutive one-score defeats, the Texans will try to remind themselves that all hope is not lost. They overcame an 0-3 start in 2018 to make the playoffs (no 0-3 squad has done so since). But the fatigue is already evident in the words of players like Stroud.
“We’re really close,” he said when asked about Ryans’ message to the team. “That’s the problem. We just keep reiterating that we’re close, and now it’s time to fix the issues and be honest with one another. You know, his message is just we’re going to keep having these results if we don’t finish and we don’t, you know, take care of the ball and just do the small things. The effort is there, the physicality. Now it’s just the execution.”
The margin for error is growing thinner by the week, however.
(Top photo of C.J. Stroud: Mike Carlson / Getty Images)