Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles said after Sunday’s 19-17 loss to the Ravens that the blame for the offense underachieving down the stretch, saying that it was “nobody’s fault outside of mine.”
No one would disagree that the Jaguars failed to take advantage of good field position after moving ahead 17-16 halfway through the fourth quarter or that Bortles’ two interceptions in the final 15 minutes hurt the team, but one of Bortles’ teammates thinks that others shared the blame. Defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks thought the offense should have been more aggressive after the defense set them up with a pair of interceptions.
“I felt like we got conservative with six minutes left in the game,” Marks said, via ESPN.com. “You can’t do that. If it comes down to it and it bites you in the butt like it did, then it’s basically that’s why you’re the [expletive] Jaguars. You can’t do that. You have to put teams away. We had plenty of chances and we didn’t do it and they capitalized the exact same way they did at their home last year.”
The familiarity of the way the Jaguars have lost their three games this year strikes a blow to the hopes that the team took a step forward from what hurt them in coach Gus Bradley’s first three years as the head coach. Given that owner Shad Khan was one of the people expressing the belief that the team turned a page, that would seem to bode poorly for Bradley as the team readies for a trip to London to face the Colts.
Joe Philbin was in a similar spot when the Dolphins went overseas to play the Jets last season and returned home without a job after a loss. There’s no outward sign that the Jaguars are thinking about that move, but it’s hard to take it totally off the table with things unfolding counter to the hopes coming into the season.