The Jacksonville Jaguars finally proved after 15 years that they’re built to have a Sunday Night Football game flexed to them, as the NFL moved their Week 15 game to the prime-time slot.
The Baltimore Ravens, however, proved they’re used to being built for prime-time nights.
A fast and fierce Ravens defense propelled the 23-7 romp on SNF, lifting the Ravens to 11-3 overall. But now, after dropping their first Sunday prime-time contest since the 2008 season, NFL voices are believing they just witnessed one “unserious” bunch down in Duval County.
Jacksonville Ripped Online: “The Jaguars Are an Unserious Team”
The Jags at one time had the look of a team in pursuit of the AFC’s best record. Once 8-3, Jacksonville found itself in the driver’s seat for the conference’s No. 1 seed.
But now, the Jags have dropped three in a row … and find themselves in a new logjam for the AFC South’s top record as the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans now share identical marks.
Analysts didn’t hesitate to put the Jags on blast, starting with Pro Football Network’s Miami Dolphins beat reporter Adam Beasley.
“The Jaguars are an unserious team,” Beasley posted on X (formerly known as Twitter).
Here’s one example of the unseriousness being pointed out. The best play of the first half from the Jags was followed by a blunder in clock management. Jacksonville and quarterback Trevor Lawrence opt out of a simple spike to stop time. But instead, he went to the sidelines and wound up milking the clock.
Still thinking about this clock management. pic.twitter.com/mS8mAtjgnp
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) December 18, 2023
“I really don’t know what the plan was. You know you can’t throw short of the goal line,” ESPN NFL analyst Tim Hasselbeck said on Sportscenter with Scott Van Pelt.
The night worsened for Lawrence and the Jags offense. Lawrence misfired on numerous throws, especially deep. Jacksonville’s final four drives ended in the following: Punt, punt, Lawrence fumble, and punt. And T-Law was another who got ripped online.
“Trevor Lawrence is sometimes it. And sometimes, he’s very not it. He *constantly* escapes criticism though. Because he’s the ‘chosen one’ and he can do no wrong,” one fan said on X.
NFL Network fantasy football analyst Marcas Grant was another who felt Lawrence shouldn’t get off easily from his dismal night.
“Doug Pederson might need to threaten to break his foot off in Trevor Lawrence’s John Brown hindparts if he keeps fumbling the football,” Grant posted.
John Harbaugh Reacts to Baltimore Ravens Dominating the Jaguars
John Harbaugh has grown used to the national spotlight as the Ravens head coach. After all, he’s won a Super Bowl and has constructed five playoff teams in his last six seasons in Baltimore.
Still, he and his team had to get used to a boisterous, enthusiastic crowd featuring fans who waited nearly two decades for an SNF game at EverBank Stadium.
MORE: NFL Prime-Time Games 2023
“Kind of a playoff-type environment we were in,” Harbaugh told reporters postgame. “It was loud, it was rocking, the fans were into it, and we had to play a playoff-style football game to win it.”
Baltimore sure did, by pivoting to a common December blueprint: Defense. Lawrence got bottled to 264 yards through the air and fumbled twice. No one, including Lawrence, surpassed 42 yards rushing. The only explosive play came when Jamal Agnew caught the Ravens off guard on his 65-yard touchdown catch.
What's more wide open? Jamal Agnew or the Grand Canyon?pic.twitter.com/EV1iOD3e9u
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) December 18, 2023
Still, not a single receiving option, including Agnew, surpassed 70 yards. The Ravens turned up the pressure with stunts, freeing up their best pass rusher Justin Madubuike, including on this sack.
Death, taxes, Justin Madubuike sacking the quarterback. pic.twitter.com/Ku85uy327K
— Pro Football Network (@PFN365) December 18, 2023
Finally, Baltimore held the NFL’s ninth-best scoring offense to just seven points.
Doug Pederson Reacts to Jaguars’ Downward Spiral
Like December temperatures in Baltimore, things have cooled down significantly for the Jags.
The Jaguars had the look of a team aiming for their first No. 1 seed since the 1999 season — when Mark Brunell, Jimmy Smith, Keenan McCardell, and Kevin Hardy all led the Jags. That team, though, lost all three of their games to the eventual AFC champion Tennessee Titans.
MORE: Week 16 NFL Power Rankings
This Jags team, though, has now lost three in a row, and it is officially in danger of losing ground in the division title race. Head coach Doug Pederson described what’s going on in Jacksonville as self-inflicted wounds.
“We can’t get out of our way. It’s extremely frustrating,” Pederson said postgame. “It’s the pride of the team, the individual effort. There’s great effort out there, but we’ve just got to be ultra-focused on doing our jobs. And the No. 1 prized possession on the field is the football. We’ve got to do a better job of protecting it.”
Pederson also addressed the elephant in the room: that infamous clock management decision before halftime.
“We’re going to stay aggressive. We’ve scored before in those situations,” Pederson explained. “It was just a mistake by Trevor, obviously knowing the situation and knowing how much time was left on there. It’s a great learning experience for us from the standpoint of, ‘Don’t throw it inbounds and be tackled in that situation.’ We’ll learn from that one.”
Pederson, though, followed by revealing that the plan was never to spike the football anyway.
That was still a six-point opportunity wasted, and it came on a night the Jaguars squandered their chance of proving that it was worth the 15-year wait to return to the SNF stage. Meanwhile, the Ravens are showing the rest of the league that all roads to the conference title go through them — becoming the clearer favorite to clinch the AFC.
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