The Jacksonville Jaguars may not have the postseason strive for, but at least they can play for pride heading forward. They also have the chance to spoil a few team’s postseason aspirations, too, and that will be the case for their next game against the Oakland Raiders, who still have a shot to make the postseason as a wild-card.
Like the Jags, the Raiders haven’t been playing all that hoot as of late and have been blown out in their last few games, however, they have enough talent to definitely defeat the Jags or make them earn a hard victory.
Here are some other things to know about Week 15’s game:
The Jags aren’t good on the West Coast, at all
The Jags will enter Sunday’s game 2-12 all-time on the West Coast, which is not good to say the least. They’ve lost eight in a row on the West Coast, a streak that dates back to January of 2004, when the Jags defeated the Raiders by a score of 13-6 in their regular season finale. To put in perspective how long ago that was, Jaguars right tackle Jawaan Taylor was only eight years old at that time.
The Jags’ odds of ending their losing streak on the West Coast seem slim when considering they’ve lost their last five games by 17 points or more. The last game, which was against the Chargers, was the roughest outing yet as they lost by their biggest deficit of the year (45-10) and left the game with their top receiver, DJ Chark Jr. in a a boot.
Then again, it would be the most Jaguar thing to ruin the Raiders last game at RingCentral Coliseum (Oakland Coliseum/ Network Associates Coliseum) when considering that’s where they last won a game on the West Coast.
But they are .500 against the Raiders
While the Jags are terrible on the West Coast, they aren’t necessary terrible against the Raiders. It’s rare to see the Jags have an all-time record of .500 or more against an opponent, but the Raiders fall in that category.
The bad news is that they are currently enduring a four-game losing streak against the Raiders. Two of those games were at RingCentral Coliseum and went down by a score of 26-3 and 19-9. However, Oakland hasn’t been playing the best ball as previously mentioned. They will come into Week 15 with a 34-3 blowout from the New York Jets, a 40-9 blowout from the Kansas City Chiefs and a 42-21 blowout from the Tennessee Titans, all of which happened in the last three weeks.
Josh Jacobs is coming and could run wild on the Jags
Rookie running back Josh Jacobs has been nothing short of solid for the Raiders, and after missing Week 14’s game against the Tennessee Titans with a shoulder issue, he’s been cleared to play against the Jags this week. That certainly isn’t good news for the Cardiac Cats as he’s already surpassed the 1,000-yard mark, has seven touchdowns and is averaging 4.9 yards a carry.
As most are aware, the Jags are decimated by injuries on the defensive side and they’ve struggle immensely against the run. Only one team in the league is worse than them in the category and that’s the Cincinnati Bengals (allowing an average of 156.7 on the ground). The Jags have allowed an average of 141.1 yards per game on the ground and with Marcell Dareus and Myles Jack on injured reserve and a makeshift unit set to hit the field at linebacker, that’s a figure that will likely get worse.
