LONDON — On paper, the Jacksonville Jaguars were on par with the Los Angeles Rams going into Sunday’s game. Two 4-2 teams with a couple of signature wins under their belts, looking to take the next step.
The Jaguars had seemingly eked out a marginal gain by arriving in London four days earlier than the Rams. But come kickoff at Wembley Stadium, one team looked wide awake and the other still deep in slumber.
“We’ve just got to start the games faster,” Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence said after a 35-7 defeat. “There’s some plays that I got to make early to get us going, and it’s routine stuff sometimes. I had Travis (Hunter) open in the first play of the game, and I’ve just got to put it on him and then move on and keep us in good situations instead of behind the chains.”
For the Jaguars, this was about as poor a performance as imaginable. For the second straight week their offensive line was outmuscled, their receivers dropped passes and they shot themselves in the foot with costly penalties.
Lawrence went 23 of 48 for 296 yards and a touchdown, but those numbers were padded by a second half of garbage time. He was sacked a career-high seven times for the second straight game. The first came on the first play of the afternoon, when Lawrence scrambled straight into the clutches of outside linebacker Jared Verse.
“You’ve got to look inward first,” Jaguars coach Liam Coen said. “What am I doing as the head football coach? That’s not clear right now. How am I communicating these things? How are we practicing these things? That’s what I’ve got to look at, right? I mean, I’ve got to look at the whole thing ultimately, but I’m not going to stand up here and blame these players. It starts with me.”
In the first five games of the season, the Jags defense conjured 14 takeaways. In their last two games, they have not managed one. While they were missing defensive linchpin Devin Lloyd — the linebacker stayed in the United States with a calf injury — Matthew Stafford tore Anthony Campanile’s secondary apart, tossing five touchdowns for the first time in a Rams uniform.
Davante Adams feasted on a scrambled secondary, catching three touchdowns. Goodness knows what the score would have been had wide receiver Puka Nacua, recovering from a sprained ankle, suited up.
The game was realistically over as a contest as early as the first quarter. And just when Jacksonville could have turned the tide, the same familiar mistakes again halted any momentum.
The Jaguars incurred 13 penalties for 119 yards, with the costliest coming in the second quarter. Jarrian Jones’ illegal block in the back negated Parker Washington’s 62-yard punt return touchdown that would have cut into the Rams’ 14-0 lead.
When the Jags were in a position to get points on the board before the half, kicker Cam Little missed a 50-yard field goal attempt. It was his fourth missed field goal of the season and follows a missed field goal and PAT against Seattle.
“You feel for the guy in terms of wanting to put him in a position to be successful,” Coen said. “I thought about that decision a little bit because it was 21-nothing at that point. You just kind of wanted to get some points on the board to see a little positivity when you looked up at the scoreboard, and we ended up missing it.”
Coen has issues elsewhere, perhaps none more pressing than his receiving room. Brian Thomas Jr. went for 31 yards off seven receptions but was again plagued by drops, with another two Sunday. The 2024 first-round pick left the field with 4:02 left in the game, clutching his right shoulder after a collision with Rams cornerback Cobie Durant.
Asked about his injury in the locker room after the game, Thomas replied: “I’m feeling good. I got the bye week to take care of my body and just fight through.”
The Jaguars’ use of two-way star Travis Hunter remains a mystery. In the first half he was largely anonymous, with zero snaps on defense, two targets in the air and an end around. He yielded zero yards before a change of tack after the break.
With the result no longer in doubt, Coen abandoned a limp ground game — Travis Etienne rushed for a total 44 yards off eight carries at an average of 5.5 yards per carry — and Lawrence started to throw the ball to Hunter, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner.
Hunter ended the game with 101 receiving yards off eight receptions and his first career touchdown.
“It’s like I just told Coach, to give me the ball. I’ll go there and make the play,” Hunter said after the game.
The flight home from London is one of the longest following a defeat, and Coen and the Jaguars have much to remedy heading into their Week 8 bye. A softer schedule awaits with road games in Las Vegas and Houston next before Jacksonville faces the Chargers at home and then visits Arizona.
The Jaguars are 4-3 and still in the mix to win the AFC South, but now that they are 7-7 in London, there is plenty to ponder on the international scene. Particularly when the Rams can show up so late to the Jags’ home away from home and trash the party.