The Jacksonville Jaguars find themselves 4-2, atop the AFC South, and coming off of back-to-back wins in London overcoming the Flacons and fellow AFC Contenders in the Buffalo Bills.
Brandon believes that this Jags team is built to win a super bowl this season. "They (Jags) have the best defense in the AFC right now. They have the best healthy running back in the AFC right now in Travis Etienne. They have a more than capable quarterback in Trevor Lawrence, and they have a super bowl winning coach. That's a recipe for success. They have things that other teams in their own conference, which is loaded, don't have." Brandon said today on In The Zone.
BK has some valid points. Defensively, the secondary has shown some ball hawk ability. The Jags are tied for second in the league with 8 interceptions this season. The Linebackers and big bodies up front have done their part in the run game, limiting opposing rushers to just 457 yards on the ground (5th) for an average of 3.6 yards-per-carry (7th). However, this is far from the best defense in the league, let alone the conference.
Jacksonville has allowed a league-worse 1,622 passing yards this season, 9 passing touchdowns (24th), and 73 first downs allowed through the air (27th). Not do these numbers anchor towards the bottom of the league, but it's been versus a less-than-exceptional group of quarterbacks. Rookie Anthony Richardson in his NFL debut for the Colts in week 1, rookie C.J. Stroud in week 3 for the Texans, first-year starter Desmond Ridder week 4 against the Falcons, and backup quarterback Gardner Minshew last Sunday vs the Colts. Now, the Jags defense did put up a great fight in a 17-9 loss against the former league MVP and super bowl champs in Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The Chiefs haven't returned to their dominant-selves they were a season ago at all this year, but holding a Mahomes-led offense to 17 points is worthy of some credit. Additionally, the Jags came out with the 25-20 victory over Josh Allen and the Bills in London two weeks ago. I give this defense a half point here for various reasons,
a) Josh Allen was a fairly-efficient 27/40 passing for 359 passing yards, 2 touchdowns and an interception. Still a monster game from Allen.
b) Looking at the positives, Jacksonville held Buffalo to a measly 29 rushing yards as a team.
Well, maybe the Jags are at least getting to opposing quarterbacks at a high rate? Wrong, 12 sacks on the year through six games is tied for 4th fewest in the league.
We think that former No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence is capable of leading a team to the promise land, but he simply has not done it yet. This isn't a knock on the third-year quarterback. but my eyes don't see a quarterback that you can count on to go out and win you a super bowl quite yet. T-Law has only thrown for over 300 yards in one game this season, and has not thrown for three passing touchdowns in a single game this season. Those aren't numbers that particularly jump out at you as a QB to galvanize the squad in route to a super bowl. However, as BK and I both made it very clear today - Trevor Lawrence doesn't need to be a league MVP for the Jags to win the super bowl, he simply needs to be a "sexy game manager".
BK and I expanded on this topic more today on In The Zone, along with an injury update on Lawrence leading up to the Jags Thursday Night Fooball game against the New Orleans Pelicans. Check out the full segment at the podcast below.