The Jaguars have lost five straight games, which took them from the top of the AFC South to the bottom far more quickly than anyone would have guessed based on last year’s success and a 3-1 start to this season.
Only four teams have gone from 3-6 to the playoffs since the NFL expanded the playoffs to 12 teams and it has only happened once -- Washington in 2012 -- in the last 22 years. That’s a daunting bit of history, but linebacker Telvin Smith said the Jags are a “prideful” group and defensive tackle Malik Jackson expressed some of that pride.
“Our season isn’t over,” Jackson said, via Jacksonville.com. “We just have to stop putting ourselves in bad positions like letting teams get up on us and we have to dig back and fight.”
Jackson’s right, of course, but it doesn’t make the task ahead of the Jaguars any easier. They have the surging Steelers on tap this weekend and a loss would leave them needing to run the table to finish the year with a winning record.
A run like that would take a consistently high level of play. Given how little has been going well for the Jaguars on either side of the ball, that seems like a real long shot.