Time is slowly ticking away on the Jacksonville Jaguars’ season.
The Jaguars concluded Week 11 with a brutal 33-13 loss to the Indianapolis Colts. With this loss, the Jags sit at 4-6 on the year and will move further down the standings in the AFC. This all but eradicates their chances of making the playoffs.
Sunday’s game was also a huge deal because it marked Nick Foles’ return from the collarbone injury he sustained Week 1.
How would Foles measure up to a tough division rival in the Colts? Here are the good, the bad and the ugly moments from the Jaguars loss vs. the Colts:
1. The good: Foles’ shoulder looks well and healthy
While the final result on the scoreboard wasn’t particularly desirable, Foles showed that he is perfectly healthy and appeared to show no setbacks from his injured shoulder. Foles threw 47 passes and had 33 completions, proving that he can handle a high volume of passes. He even showed off some great intermediate accuracy on his two touchdown throws to wide receiver DJ Chark Jr.
There were many questions as to rather or not Foles would be able to return to form after his injury and it seems for now that everything looks fine health-wise for him. It’s an encouraging sign for a quarterback that the Jaguars will be committed to for three more years.
The bad: An offense that was just offensive
This was a pivotal game that the Jaguars needed to make some noise in the AFC South and they failed to capitalize on that. The offense completely did them no favors.
The Jaguars did jump on the board early with a touchdown from DJ Chark Jr. on a brilliant 34-yard catch and run with 6:53 in the fourth quarter. From there, however, the offense completely stalled out.
After the touchdown, the Jaguars would go on to have four consecutive punts and an interception to end the half. The second half would not be much better as the Jaguars would turn the ball over on downs, punt twice and also miss a field goal before the second touchdown by Chark with 59 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
The Jaguars completely abandoned the run game as Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette finished with only 23 rushing yards and eight touches. Overall, the Jags finished with 308 total yards, most of which came as the game was already reaching its conclusion.
However, all of the team’s issues weren’t on the offense:
The ugly: The Jags run defense gets gashed
The Jaguars came into the league with one of the worst run defenses in the league, ranking as the fourth-worst in total rush yards allowed and worst in the league in yards per carry.
Sunday was not any better as the Jaguars were absolutely gashed on the ground, giving up 264 rushing yards. Colts running back Marlon Mack was one of the bigger beneficiaries of the day, rushing for 109 yards and a touchdown.
However, the story of the rush defense gets more egregiously bad as reserve running back Johnathan Williams got in on the action, rushing for a career-high 116 yards on 13 carries with the longest being a 48-yard run. Williams came into the game with a career total of only 94 yards.
The Jaguars gave up a whopping 7.3 yards per carry on the day and it’s clear that this is a run defense that will be a problem all year. Teams can practically run the ball at will against the Jags at this point, and if it keeps up, the Jaguars will have a hard time overall on the defensive end.
