JAGUARS PLAY AWFUL, BUT WIN
With completions few and scoring rare, Bortles stands tall as the least bad QB
What happens when both quarterbacks in an NFL playoff game stink to high heaven as passers?
One team beats the other 10-3, in a hellish game to watch. It happened Sunday at EverBank Field, when the host Jacksonville Jaguars eked past the Buffalo Bills in the second AFC wild card game of the weekend.
Ugly? Odoriferous? Sure — but so what, said Jaguars cornerback Jalen Ramsey, whose interception near midfield with 26 seconds left sealed the Jaguars’ first playoff victory in a decade.
“Yeah, I don’t care what people call it,” Ramsey said. “We’re going to come in here for another week, while other teams are sitting home.”
True enough — but oh, that woeful quarterbacking on Sunday. Jacksonville’s Blake Bortles was so awful aerially, he was able to complete a pass to only one wide receiver all day — backup Dede Westbrook. He had five catches for 48 yards.
Bortles actually rushed for more yards on impromptu scrambles — 88 — than he passed for (87, on 12-of-23 throwing). Time and again in the first half, Bortles badly missed simple short throws, mostly screens. Perhaps that’s why in the second half he chose to scramble so often — eight times for 53 yards.
“He’s an athlete — that’s what that tells me,” Jaguars left tackle Cam Robinson said. “He’s going to go out there and do whatever it takes for us to win.”
Bortles’s scrambles proved the difference, because the Bills defence successfully blanketed the Jags’ sensational rookie running back Leonard Fournette, holding him to just 57 yards on 21 carries.
Bortles scrambled three times for 20 yards on the game’s only touchdown drive late in the third quarter, a march that covered 86 yards in 15 plays and chewed 8:52 off the clock.
“Those quarterback runs really hurt us,” Bills linebacker Preston Brown said.
Bortles capped the drive with a fourth-and-goal play-action TD pass from the Buffalo one-yard line to backup tight end Ben Koyack.
Thereafter, the Bills offence never advanced further than Jacksonville’s 38.
“The defence came back and did a heck of a job in the second half,” Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said. “Playoff football is about you just going out there to win. No one is trying to win a beauty contest.” Noted. But that said— “(Offensively), we never really got into a rhythm and we weren’t able to get anything on third downs, so I’d be a fool to sit here and say I’m not concerned,” Marrone said.
Bills quarterback Tyrod Taylor hit enough third-down throws in the first half to pass for 90 yards by halftime, when the scored was tied 3-3. But he was dreadful after, completing six of 16 for 44 yards until getting knocked out (perhaps literally, briefly) on a wicked but legal hit with 1:17 left. That came on Buffalo’s last desperation drive.
Backup Bills QB Nathan Peterman finished up, and although he scrambled for a drive-extending first down on fourth-and-three, then hit receiver Deonte Thompson for 14 yards on a deepish curl to the Jaguars’ 38, he was flagged for intentional grounding, then threw the hope-ending pick.
But this one’s on Taylor. Significantly, it was Buffalo’s fourth loss this season in which Taylor failed to pass for as many as 45 yards in the second half, after Cincinnati (39), New Orleans (eight) and the first New England game (17).
Will the Bills bring him back? Odds seem against it.
As for now, Taylor has entered concussion protocol. He did not appear overly pained or affected while sitting on a stool at his locker, which indicates his concussion may not be a long-term issue.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott was gracious in talking about Taylor afterward, preferring to focus on his character rather than his passing — never a good thing, really, if you’re the QB.
“I thought he handled himself just like the rest of our football team,” McDermott said, “with class and with a lot of pride.”
The Pittsburgh Steelers host Jacksonville on Sunday. The Jags throttled the Steelers at Heinz Field 30-9 in October, pick-sixing Ben Roethlisberger twice to blow that game open.
The Jags-Steelers winner faces the Saturday night victor between Tennessee and New England on Jan. 21 in the AFC championship game, with a berth in Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis on the line.
“We didn’t want to be a team to make it to the playoffs and lose in the first round,” said Jaguars receiver Allen Hurns, whom Bortles targeted only once. “We feel we can go all the way.”
Maybe — but not with quarterbacking like that.
Playoff football is about you just going out there to win. No one is trying to win a beauty contest.