The Jaguars’ four-game winning streak came to an end in Arizona on Sunday as the Cardinals took a 27-24 win when Phil Dawson hit a field goal on the final play of the game.
Dawson got a chance to make that kick because the Jaguars punted the ball away with 27 seconds left in the game, something that Jaguars coach Doug Marrone criticized himself for doing when the game was over. The Jaguars had the ball on their own 10-yard-line with 1:14 left to play and ran the clock down to 37 seconds with a T.J. Yeldon run on first down that seemed to signal overtime.
They changed gears from there, however. They only got four seconds off the clock on the next play as Blake Bortles fired an incomplete pass to Marqise Lee and the Cardinals were able to call their final timeout after stopping Leonard Fournette on third down.
“At the end of the game, I have to do a better job,” Marrone said, via the Florida Times-Union. “We ran the ball on first down and we got greedy. I should have run the ball, run the clock out and gone to overtime. That’s my fault.”
That the punt gave the Cardinals a chance to win in regulation may be on Marrone, but the Jags still had a chance to keep the Cardinals from picking up 22 yards on two pass plays that set Dawson up for the 57-yard try so there was more than one person responsible for Jacksonville’s first loss since Week Six.