JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars started on the wrong side of history and came out on the other.
Just like that, the storybook season continues with a playoff performance for the ages.
Trevor Lawrence erased the worst football half of his life with one of the best, leading the Jaguars to a 31-30 comeback against the Chargers that they somehow managed and still can’t believe it happened on a chilly Saturday night at TIAA Bank Field.
Riley Patterson’s 36-yard field sparked an electrifying cheer before time was up, sparking a comeback from a 27-0 deficit with a series of exclamation marks.
Yes, 27-0! The Jaguars had five turnovers and were dead in the water in the first half. They roared back and gave Doug Pederson one of the most impressive wins of his career.
“I mean it’s everything. That’s exactly what I told them at halftime, it’s a bit like our season,” said Pederson. “Sometimes we’ve thrown ourselves into a hole, and we’ve sometimes worked our way out. Just to have the resilience and the fight and the desire and the ability to keep playing because it could easily have gone the other way and I’m so proud of these guys for that. Everything is at stake and they go out and do the work.”
Lawrence threw four interceptions in the first half and countered that with four touchdowns and a clutch two-point conversion vault afterward with 5 minutes and 30 seconds to position Jacksonville for a comeback that didn’t seem realistic. The defense forced a punt and Lawrence engineered a classic drive from his own 21 to set Patterson up for the dagger to win it.
It was the third-biggest comeback in playoff history and sends the Jaguars into the divisional playoffs next week. Their opponent will be finalized on Sunday but will likely be either the top-seeded Chiefs or the No. 2-seeded Bills barring major surprises.
“Typically us,” said receiver Marvin Jones. “We know how to throw a good party.”
Receiver Christian Kirk added, “I told them we’re never doing that again.”
The fact that the Jaguars even sniffed the division round was unthinkable in the first half.
Lawrence threw four interceptions in the first two quarters — half of what he threw together in the previous 17 games — that silenced the 70,250 crowd almost immediately. That start was historically poor, but Lawrence’s ending managed to make this a footnote.
From a 27-0 deficit in the second quarter, Lawrence threw second-half touchdown passes to Zay Jones, Christian Kirk and Marvin Jones, then added a two-point conversion jump over the stack to take it 5:30 to 30 :28 go to bring. Lawrence, sensing the impossible was within his grasp, slammed the ball in harder than ever from a shot on goal and the crowd went wild.
After that, the Jaguars’ defense hit it big. Roy Robertson-Harris fired Justin Herbert for an 8 loss. And Foye Oluokun briefly stopped Joshua Kelly in third place to force a punt. Lawrence got it back on his own 21 at 3:09.
“I mean, the odds,” I told the guys, “I don’t like my odds, but I love my odds,” Oluokun said. “As long as the chance of a win is slim at all, we will keep fighting. We saw the tables turn, we had momentum, we kept it, we kept putting the ball on offense and they started rolling.
On the field, Lawrence moved the Jaguars, hitting Kirk, Marvin Jones and Zay Jones with four passes, though Kirk missed a third and one goal. That set up a game for the game. Fourth and one at the Chargers 41 and too far for Patterson, Pederson challenged Travis Etienne.
Instead of going down the middle, Etienne broke around the right flank and had an open field to work with. He was tackled after a 20 win, and that set Patterson up for a feasible shot, which he pinned.
ball game.
Lawrence’s three first-quarter interceptions marked the first time in NFL playoff history that a quarterback was picked up three times in the first quarter, according to the Boston Globe.
His four first-half interceptions are a dubious feat, matched only once in playoff history, in the 1978 Super Bowl by Denver’s Craig Morton against the Cowboys. Lawrence finished 28 of 47 for 288 yards, four touchdowns and four interceptions.
“For myself, of course yes, definitely the worst half of my football life, even in a lot of people’s football lives,” Lawrence said. “Probably some story in those stats.”
After that disastrous start, he found a rhythm and put Jacksonville 30-20 on a 39-yard touchdown against Zay Jones late in the third quarter.
Lawrence played his worst game ever in football, throwing an interception on the second turn of the game, another on Jacksonville’s next drive, and another late in the opening quarter. These resulted in 17 quick points for the Chargers and a lead that was almost too steep to break.
“I played with Brett Favre, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and there were times when he didn’t have a great first half and came back in the second half and was able to brighten the light,” Pederson said.
“That’s what I love about Trevor and his demeanor and his aggressiveness and ability to just forget and move on. But he will be the first to tell you that it’s not about him, it’s about the guys around him. [They] made plays, protection was good, receivers did a good job being where they needed to be. But from an individual perspective, it’s really a great performance from our quarterback.”
Lawrence got out of his funk before halftime and threw a 9-yard touchdown to Evan Engram. He added that 39-yard shot to Jones and a 6-yard pass to Marvin Jones in the third quarter that cut the deficit to 30-20.
That started the thought process. Maybe, just maybe?
“Hopefully we’ll play a little better next week. Hopefully the defense will play the same way as tonight. You have done a great job. But offensively you can’t turn the ball over so often and count on a win. We found a way tonight, but it’s probably not a good formula to move forward,” Lawrence said. “Well, I know personally that it shouldn’t take a second half like that to win the game. If you just play better in the first half and watch out for the ball.”
The start removed the electricity from the stadium in no time at all. After picks on Jacksonville’s first two drives and a punt after that, Lawrence was picked for a third time in the first quarter, and a second time by Asante Samuel, who set up a six-yard touchdown run by Austin Ekeler. By the time the opening quarter ended 17-0 down, Lawrence had made four passes to his teammates and three to the Chargers.
Nobody expected the Jaguars to be in this position. Cleaning up Urban Meyer’s mess and years of struggle before it would have been ambitious if Jacksonville turned the corner in 2022.
But the Jaguars escaped a 6-2 start and won their last five games of the season to snatch an unexpected AFC South title.
That’s house money. And the Jaguars are still giving it out.
Copyright 2023 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.