One of the worst things that can be said about a professional football player is that he was loafing on the field.
During the game-deciding play on Monday night, which started with Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence falling down, continued with him falling again, and ended with an improbable touchdown run, it sure looks like one key defensive player for the Chiefs was giving minimal effort. If that much.
Watch defensive tackle Chris Jones. He sees Lawrence fall. He watches Lawrence get up. He observes Lawrence scramble to the left.
Jones pulls up when it appears that Lawrence was being tackled. And then, after Lawrence broke free, Jones took a half step before pulling the plug on his pursuit.
After the game, Jones addressed the play without acknowledging the apparent lack of effort.
“I thought multiple times we had him,” Jones told reporters. “We just got to finish. We’ve got to finish. We got multiple guys there that we just got to finish that play. It was a fluke play for him to be able to break that many tackles. But yeah, I put it on us as a defense. We’ve got to finish. You know, we’ve got to bring him down on that.”
Jones wasn’t questioned about his own failure to finish. He likely will be, at some point this week.
Even if Jones thought he couldn’t get to Lawrence before he scored, someone could have hit Lawrence and knocked the ball out. Jones could have been in position to recover the fumble. Or maybe Lawrence would have cut back again, toward the spot where Jones would have been, if he had given chase.
Regardless, it’s a tough look for Jones. And it will be interesting to hear how he and the Chiefs explain it.
Monday night’s Jaguars win it into a trend of big comebacks in Week 5 and it also fit into a larger trend for the 2025 season.
Adam Schefter of ESPN notes that it was also the 17th game to feature a go-ahead score in the final minute of regulation. That’s the most through the first five weeks of a season since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970.
Four of those scores have been made by the Buccaneers, including Chase McLaughlin’s game-winning field goal in Sunday’s 38-35 road win in Seattle. They are the first team to have their first four wins of a season come on scores in the final minute of regulation.
Between the double-digit comebacks and late fireworks, the early theme of the 2025 season seems to be that few leads are safe in the NFL.
The Jaguars’ comeback win on Monday night felt improbable, but it fit right in with the rest of Week 5’s action.
They fell behind 14-0 in the first half of the game before rallying back to take the lead in the third quarter and ultimately pulling out the win in the final seconds. That made them the sixth team to come back from a double-digit deficit to win this week.
According to the Associated Press, it is the sixth time in NFL history with such a six-pack of games. The last time it happened was in 2013.
The Broncos, Titans, Saints, Panthers, and Commanders were the other teams to come back from being down at least 10 points in Week 6.
Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd was the AFC defensive player of the week in Week 4 and he’s going to be a top candidate to take the prize again in Week 5.
The Chiefs appeared to be on their way to a touchdown that would break a 14-14 tie in the third quarter when they snapped the ball on a second down from the Jacksonville 3-yard line and wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster broke open long enough for Patrick Mahomes to fire a pass to him. Mahomes didn’t see Lloyd dropping after a blitz feint, however, and Lloyd snagged the ball at the 1-yard line.
Lloyd then took off in the other direction, avoided a Mahomes tackle attempt and ran “a long, long way” for a touchdown that helped set the stage for the Jaguars’ 31-28 win.
“It was just a great call,” Lloyd said in his postgame press conference. “It was a zero look. I was able to pop out and we know the ball’s coming out quick, so it’s really about me getting my eyes back and getting in the right vicinity. The ball’s right there, thankfully. Picked up a couple blocks, those were big. I don’t know if I would have made it if I didn’t get those.”
The interception was Lloyd’s league-best fourth of the season. The first three helped him land AFC defensive player of the month for September, but none of the others was as memorable as the one he made on Monday night.
Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes has a lot of experience making improbable comebacks and game-winning plays in the final seconds, but he was on the other side of things on Monday night in Jacksonville.
The Chiefs gave up an early 14-0 lead and then fell behind when Jaguars linebacker Devin Lloyd returned a Mahomes interception 99 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter. They were able to move back into the lead with 1:45 left to play, but Mahomes could only watch as the Jaguars drove down the field to set up quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s stumbling, game-winning touchdown run.
In his postgame press conference, Mahomes said the Chiefs “let a game slip away.” In addition to his interception, the team committed 13 penalties that included a couple of defensive pass interference calls that helped set up Jacksonville scores.
The result was the third one-score loss of the season for a team that’s specialized in pulling those out in recent years.
“It kinda just talks about our entire season. We have the guys and we’ve executed at certain points in games and looked really good, but we kinda crush ourselves with penalties and mistakes and interceptions and fumbles and whatever that is,” Mahomes said. “We’ve done that to ourselves all season long. It’s been one guy here or there. In this league, it’s so close that those change games. We’ve got to be better. We’ve lost too many games already. We gotta find a way to be better as a team.”
The Chiefs don’t get much chance to breathe. They’ll face the Lions on a short week and will need to be sharper for 60 minutes if they’re going to avoid a fourth loss in six games.
