The New England Patriots and Carolina Panthers deserve hearty congratulations getting through the first 10 weeks of the NFL unscathed. Or maybe they don’t. Consider what happened just after 4pm on Sunday in Baltimore as yet another sign of what a dogpile the rest of the NFL is.
With seconds of the game to go, Jacksonville quarterback Blake Bortles faced a fourth-and-four from the Ravens’ 49-yard line, with his team out of time outs and losing by one point. He fumbled a shotgun snap, but picked up the ball and looked for a receiver.
Bortles was quickly sacked for an apparent six-yard loss by Baltimore linebacker Elvis Dumervil. And that should have been the end of the game between two lousy teams, with the Ravens apparently handing the Jaguars their 14th straight road loss. But wait!
While wrestling Bortles down, Dumervil clearly hooked his hand on the quarterback’s face mask. The game was not over. The ball was moved to the Baltimore 35 (yes, it was a 14-yard penalty), just within field-goal range. With no time remaining, rookie kicker Jason Myers, who missed a 26-yard field goal attempt Sunday and three extra points this season, belted a 53-yard field goal to lift the Jaguars, 22-20.
Dumervil took responsibility after the game for one of the poorest timed penalties ever, but what unfolded on the field was just the start. The Ravens dropped to 2-7 after the stunning loss, but the Jaguars are 3-6.
Or: one game out of first place in the horrid AFC South.
The AFC South is not the only dreary division in the league. The Giants, who have a bye this weekend, lead the NFC East at 5-5, with Washington and Philadelphia a half-game behind and ready to join the Giants at the top of the heap. Uh oh: Washington play the rampaging Panthers this weekend, with the Eagles take on Tampa Bay probably without quarterback Sam Bradford, who was struggling before he was hurt in Sunday’s terrible loss to Miami.
Eighteen of 32 NFL teams are under .500, and only one division race that contains two good teams is unfolding, with Minnesota (7-2) winning five straight to take the NFC North lead over the crumbling Packers (6-3), who have lost three in a row.
The rest of the action looks like a bar brawl, and not even a good bar brawl. Thursday night’s game in Jacksonville between the Jaguars and the putrid Tennessee Titans (2-7) now means something more than a chance for the NFL to blind us again with “Color Rush” uniforms: the Jaguars will be in mustard yellow, the Titans in baby blue.
With Indianapolis quarterback Andrew Luck out a few more weeks with a lacerated kidney, the first-place Colts (4-5) play Sunday at Atlanta (6-3). The Texans (4-5) play at the Jets. So it is not inconceivable that the Jaguars could be in first place by Sunday night.
Or, actually, a tie for first. Indianapolis owns that all-important tiebreaker over the Jaguars because the Colts beat them last month, 16-13. The same month the Texans beat the Jaguars, 31-20. But the Jags get both teams back: Indianapolis on 13 December, Houston on 3 January. Besides, the Jaguars’ last six games are far from a murderers’ row: San Diego (2-7), the Titans again, the Colts, Falcons, Saints (4-6), then the Texans.
So the Jaguars could become only the third team in NFL history to make the playoffs with a losing record in a 16-game season – the others were Carolina (7-8-1) last year and Seattle (7-9) in 2010. Or even the Colts and Texans can join that club. A losing team can do well in the playoffs too, the 2010 Seahawks, given home-field advantage in the first round of the playoffs because they won the NFC West, upended the Saints (11-5), 41-36, in the game that became famous for Marshawn Lynch’s “Beastquake” touchdown run.
Gus Bradley, the Jaguars’ third-year coach, was actually asked about the AFC South race at his news conference Monday in Jacksonville. “I know some coaches who would put it up there [as motivation], but with this team, and where it’s at, focusing on each day is important,” he said.
Bradley, the defensive coordinator of that 2010 Seahawks’ team, was thought to be in danger of losing his job as recently as the early morning of 25 October, when Jacksonville staggered into a game against Buffalo in London with a well-deserved 1-5 record.
You may remember that thriller. Bortles threw an interception that Corey Graham returned 44 yards for a touchdown that gave the Bills a 31-27 fourth-quarter lead. Aided by a pass-interference penalty, Bortles drove the Jaguars 84 yards in seven plays, and then the Jaguars held Buffalo on four plays to seal a 34-31 victory. So Bradley did not become the third NFL coach in two years to get fired after losing a game in London.
At least his team follows directions. Bradley said on Monday he showed his team last Friday a video emphasizing making smart decisions at critical times, and the Jaguars did that in the frantic final seconds against the Ravens.
Bortles remembered before the play on which he was sacked that it was fourth down, so spiking the ball to stop the clock would have resulted a turnover. On the prior play, Julius Thomas handed the ball to the official after catching an 11-yard pass, and the center, Stefan Wisniewski, waited to snap the ball until the rest of the offense was set. “To see that [attention to detail] come up in a game was cool,” Bradley said.
Of course, the following play resulted in a sack, but Dumervil needed to haul down the 6ft 5in, 245lb Bortles by grasping his face mask. And from that single flub, a race for a genuine NFL playoff berth was launched.
Leading the charge will be Bortles, in his second NFL season from Central Florida, who appears to be improving. He has 19 touchdowns versus 11 interceptions this year, compared to 11 touchdowns and 17 interceptions last year. In other words, he is as good as most of the league’s non-Bradys.
