Jaguars Road To Division Championship All But Insurmountable As Titans Advance To 7-3

Titans Victory Propels the Reigning Champs to 2.5 Game Lead in Division

The bye week has gotten off to a rough start for Jacksonville following a Titans 27-17 victory over the Packers. Jacksonville began the season in a promising position in the AFC South with a one game advantage heading into Philadelphia, however the team has taken a nose dive since and has only notched a single win over the following seven games. What is perhaps the most surprising part of this is that by many statistic Jacksonville has been above their division foes. These include offensive yards per games, points scored per game, and turnovers forced. These would seemingly point to Jacksonville being in command of the division but one key part of the game has been completely polar in comparison to Tennessee, finish.

Jacksonville's largest margin of defeat all season is 10 points which came against the Kansas City Chiefs last week, and each of the six other losses were one possession games. All of these games clearly presented opportunities for Jacksonville to snatch victory but the team was never able to capitalize in any of them. Of Jacksonville's victories there have been blowouts of 24-0 and 38-10 while the third victory came after a 27-3 rout of the Las Vegas Raiders. On the other side of the coin, the Titans began their season with a last second loss to the Giants and a 41-7 loss against the Buffalo BIlls. Since then, the Titans have gone 6-1 with victories of no more than 9 points and one extremely close loss against the Kansas City Chiefs. Ultimately, playoff teams aren't decided by what could've been but rather by what happened and the first half of the season has shown the Titans to be better at winning. However, the division isn't completely out of reach for the Jaguars.

Jacksonville Must Sweep the Titans and Learn to Win

First of all, I don't expect the Jaguars to pull off a miraculous run to take the division this year. Jacksonville would at most be allowed to lose a single game and would need a massive collapse by Tennessee to propel Duval into the postseason. However, that doesn't mean we can't have hope. Perhaps the biggest saving grace for the Jacksonville Jaguars, or potentially the nail in the coffin, is that two of our final seven games will take place against Tennessee. If Jacksonville can flip the script and sweep the Titans that would bring Jacksonville within two games of Tennessee while holding the tie breaker. Having watched this version of the Jaguars, I don't think there's a game that can't be won and it is within the realm of possibility for this team to break out.

There is undeniably a load of young talented players who are breaking out right now, those including Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, Tyson Campbell, and Andre Cisco. It's also completely feasible that Josh Allen, Travon Walker, or Devin Lloyd could put it together late this season although that would be a change of pace for those players. There is a scenario where Jacksonville can win their next two matchups(vs. Ravens, @ Lions) while Tennessee drops one of theirs(vs. Bengals, @ Eagles). If Jacksonville could capitalize against the Titans in Nashville, a very tall task, they would only need to gain one more game in order for the penultimate matchup to decide the division. The point of saying this is not to tell you to put your money on Jacksonville taking the division but rather to tell you to not give up on this season yet. A difficult late-season schedule is going to test this young Jaguars team and ultimately it will tell us how far away this team is from competing in the playoffs. Thanks for reading, feel free to give your thoughts in the comments and any suggestions for content you want to see. Make sure to be respectful towards other fans and represent the Jaguars fan base the way it deserves.