The Jaguars had built up some good vibes after winning five straight games going into their bye.
But Sunday’s performance was a true clunker, as Jacksonville lost to San Francisco 34-3.
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence took five sacks as the 49ers racked up 10 quarterback hits — including two by newcomer Chase Young. The Jaguars had just 12 first downs and finished with a season-low 221 yards.
“I thought the team was ready. We failed to execute on the opening drive defensively and we failed to execute on the opening drive offensively,” head coach Doug Pederson said in his postgame press conference. “That’s the part that is disappointing. Because these guys were ready to go. To have the lack of execution like we did early in the football game, just kind of snowballed from there.”
But, there could be a silver lining to Sunday’s result.
“They know what they’re doing, and they did it well today. For us, we’re still trying to get there,” Pederson said. “I told the team again, we haven’t done anything here. We’re trying to be like that.
“We’re trying to have that consistency and to me, this will be in some ways good for our players. A little bit of a wakeup call, quite honestly, myself included — coaches, players, we all have to think about what are we willing to give up these next eight games so we don’t do this again. I think our players will rebound, they always have and we look forward to next week.”
The Jaguars are still 6-3, leading the AFC South. Plus, this loss doesn’t count in the conference standings, which could be important for a postseason tiebreaker.
But the club will surely want to get this taste out of its collective mouth against the Titans next week.