The Jaguars’ overall lack of talent left them without much of a margin of error this season to begin with. Playing without running back Maurice Jones-Drew and wide receiver Laurent Robinson made it smaller.
But they compounded it Sunday by making the kind of errors they can’t afford under any circumstances, dropping nine passes against the Packers.
“I think it’s concentration,” Jags coach Mike Mularkey said, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times-Union. “Cecil [Shorts] would have made a great catch, but that’s what we need to have. Mike [Thomas] probably thought he was going to score, and he took his eye off it.
“I’m big on seeing the ball into your hands. If you see the ball, you should catch it.”
Those dropped passes (and special teams mistakes) kept them from capitalizing on a solid defensive effort, limiting the Packers to 238 yards.
When you play that way, the “missed lay-ups” as offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski referred to them, are that much more painful.
“I thought that was a great description of some of the things we’ve missed,” Mularkey said. “We talked about it even Saturday night in front of the players. Lay-ups, not 3-pointers that we’re missing. Nine drops. Those are lay-ups. Those are things we’ve got to be able to put the ball in the basket, if we want to use a basketball correlation.”
If you want to use another, it makes them look like the Washington Generals.