Losing is nothing new for the 2021 Jaguars, but the way they lost on Thursday night in Cincinnati was a bit different.
The Jaguars lost by at least 10 points in each of their first three games, but their fourth outing came down to the wire. The Bengals wiped out Jacksonville’s four-point halftime lead, but the Jaguars went back up by a touchdown before surrendering the final 10 points in a 24-21 loss that head coach Urban Meyer called a heartbreaker.
Before the heartbreak, rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence threw for 204 yards, ran for a touchdown, and didn’t turn the ball over in the best performance of his short NFL career. After it was over, Lawrence shared his belief that the team is close to breaking through.
“We’re up 14-0 at halftime and come back out and just somehow come up on the wrong side of it, that’s tough,” Lawrence said, via the team’s website. “We’re going to bounce back, no doubt, I know what we’re made of. Just seeing how we’ve handled the first three weeks, I know nothing is going to change but, damn, I really want to get a win with these guys. We’ve just got to finish, collectively. It’s everybody. It’s not one side of the ball or anything like that. It’s all of us finishing. I’m not even going to say it’s going to take time, we’re right there and you guys have seen it the last few weeks.”
Getting more outings like Thursday’s from Lawrence on a consistent basis would make for a step in the right direction for the Jaguars in the long term and Thursday showed that there could be some short-term success in the offing as well.