Week 10 represented a tremendous opportunity for the Jacksonville Jaguars to show the NFL that they are ready to be inserted into conversations with the big dogs in the league. Instead, they were steamrolled at home by the San Francisco 49ers, 34-3. It was an embarrassing loss, but it also had significant implications in the AFC South as the Houston Texans improved to 5-4 and one game behind the Jags.
Jacksonville was on a five game winning streak and looked like they were ready to take that next step up to that elite level among NFL teams. The Jags and Niners both had byes, so there was a lot of anticipation surrounding this meeting. Contenders from every conference matched up after an off week, and some (me, for one), even thought it should have been the Thursday night game. Oh, how wrong we were.
Now the Jags must regroup and prepare for Tennessee and Houston. The Jags should be able to take care of the Titans at home and will want a game with their lead over the Texans. Houston already has a win over Jacksonville and will have a chance to sweep the season series in Week 12.
This outing against San Francisco is a bad look at the Jaguars’ season resume. It was supposed to be one of the better games of Week 10, and it ended up being a dud. SF got back on track while beating Jacksonville so far that it might be hard for them to recover from Houston in two weeks.
Nothing seemed right for Jacksonville on Sunday, and the one player who had a decent day was Christian Kirk, who caught six passes for 104 yards. But it’s hard to get excited about anyone’s production when it only amounts to three points on the scoreboard. The Jaguars are still 6-3 in the grand scheme of things, but this loss makes people feel like they may not be ready to make the jump to elite status just yet.
The AFC South was supposed to be a piece of cake for Jacksonville and now they have the Texans to worry about. All Jacksonville can do now is learn from what they did wrong Sunday, which was mostly everything, and move forward to get ready for these next two divisional games. After winning five in a row before facing the Niners, now is not the time to go on a long slide into the loss column.
