The Jacksonville Jaguars aren’t just losing. They’re failing to keep their games close.
All of the Jaguars’ losses this season have been by 10 points or more, making them look quite a bit worse than the NFL’s other winless team, the Buccaneers, who have had losses by one, two, three and eight points this season.
In fact, according to information gathered by STATS, LLC for the Associated Press, the Jaguars’ average margin of defeat of 21 points a game puts them on pace to have the second-worst average losing margin of any team in NFL history. The only team worse was the Chi-Pitt Cards-Steelers, a 1944 team that combined the Chicago Cardinals and Pittsburgh Steelers after both teams’ rosters were depleted with players leaving to serve in World War II. The Cards-Steelers went 0-10 and lost by an average of 22 points a game.
And even that Cards-Steelers team managed to keep it close once, losing by only two points to the Cleveland Rams. Keeping a game close would be major progress for the Jaguars.
After playing the 49ers on Sunday and then having their bye week, the schedule gets a little easier for the Jaguars: They still get to play the 2-5 Texans twice, and they also have games against the 3-4 Browns, 3-4 Bills and 3-4 Cardinals. So Jacksonville may still avoid the fate of joining the 2008 Lions as the only 0-16 team in NFL history. But at this point, just keeping a game close would represent a step in the right direction.