In a year’s time, the Jacksonville Jaguars went from 13 losses to 13 wins and a division title. Even better still, the Jags are just four games away from the team’s first Super Bowl victory.
Sunday’s 41-7 thrashing of the Tennessee Titans was all about Jacksonville. Trevor Lawrence etched his name in Jaguars lore, right beside his first-year coach, Liam Coen. The defense showed up yet again, which helped complement the city of Jacksonville, which showed up for their hometown team. Sunday was about Jacksonville. It
was always going to be. It was always the Jags.
And with that victory, there’s at least more Sunday of football to be had in Duval County. This time, it will be against the Buffalo Bills. Before all that, however, let’s do as we always do and assess the many winners from what was an oh-so-fantastic way to cap off a historic regular season.
WINNERS
Jacksonville
What a way to put the city of Jacksonville in the national spotlight, man.
For anyone who has been a Jags fan for some time, you know what it’s like to be the forgettable losers of the NFL. You can’t even say the Jags are lovable losers because who outside of Jacksonville and parts of England and Ireland cares about us? The answer is no one.
Now you have to care. You have to care because this team is good. This team is loaded with talent and whether fans of other teams like it or not, this team is winning on the biggest of stages. No longer can everyone pull what Richard Sherman does and overlook the Jags because traditionally they aren’t great. The Jags are legit and you have to take notice.
The fan base showed up for what was always supposed to be a blowout. In the end, it even was a blowout– the largest such win by the Jags over the Titans ever! What a look this was for Jacksonville to cap off a tremendous year. It’s hard not to watch the media this team puts out, the interviews these guys do, the way these guys play, the way the coaches embrace the city, the way it makes people mad we are good and not smile. This is what it’s all about.
Obviously, this has just been one season. Things can always go sideways in a minute. Teams like New England or Kansas City have had this type of success regularly. For Jacksonville though? This doesn’t come around too often. And I think I speak for every Jags fan out there when I say I’ll be showing my ass around town for the next few days because the Jags are winners.
The 2025 AFC South division title will always belong to Duval County. Not Houston. Not Indianapolis. And certainly not to anyone in Nashville. Right here in Duval. It sure feels nice. Revel in it. You earned it.
The Offense
Now to the more Xs and Os of the day: the Jacksonville Jaguars offense shredded the Titans.
In recent weeks there has been some moaning and groaning that the Jags and Lawrence haven’t played the best defenses and certainly the Titans are no exception to that. The counterpoint to that however is a Pro Bowler literally sacked Lawrence on the Jags first play on offense. You can only do so much as these are still NFL players after all.
Speaking of Lawrence, he planted himself in the Jaguar quarterback pantheon by eclipsing 4,000 yards passing this season and ending with 29 passing touchdowns. He also added nine rushing scores, 13 wins and a grill to his season which gives him basically the best year for a quarterback in Jags history. Not too shabby for a guy who was a “bust” a few months ago.
That same quarterback also completed passes to nine different players to finish with a final stat line of 22-30 for 255 yards and a trio of passing touchdowns. In his last six games, Lawrence has just one pick to 19 total scores.
The plan by offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, who has done a hell of a job, and Coen was to attack the porous and banged-up Titans secondary. It worked all day. The only real flaw by the offense was the two sacks given up or maybe not running the ball enough. But those are minor issues when you look at the offensive production as a whole.
Parker Washington was great as usual again and ended his career year with 847 yards and five scores, going for 87 yards and a score against the Titans.
Brenton Strange looked great, catching all six balls tossed his way for 52 yards and a score. Both Brian Thomas Jr. and Jakobi Meyers did their parts. It’s all clicking heading into the playoffs.
Lawrence is the story of the offense from Sunday and from the season as a whole. He has rewritten his narrative 10 times over with his production during the second half of the 2025-26 season. I, like many, have been critical of the guy. He certainly is a rollercoaster. When things were starting to look worrisome once again earlier this year, it was Lawrence who picked it up and righted the ship. The Prince Who Was Promised is here. He also won against his rival team to clinch the No. 3 AFC playoff seed on his daughter’s birthday no less. He earned some diamonds on his teeth I think.
The Defense
In the same boat as the offense, the defense had yet another banner day against the Titans.
After the first touchdown drive led by Cam Ward – who exited the game with a shoulder injury – the Jags defense held the Titans scoreless and even scored on an Antonio Johnson pick-six. Johnson is going to be paid in a big way by the way but I digress.
While it was just a one sack day, the Titans literally had nothing on offense to compete with the Jags. That team needed to run the ball and couldn’t muster anything at all, finishing with just 77 yards combined on the ground and just 44 yards from Tony Pollard.
You really can’t ask for much more from the NFL’s best run defense and the NFL’s second-best team in terms of takeaways. It’s now been six games straight that the Jags haven’t allowed a team to score over 20 points on them. That in turn has helped the offense a ton to beat teams by over 19 points during the eight-game win streak into the playoffs.
Defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile has gotten a boatload of praise this year and every bit has been deserved. Those players on defense seemingly would die for our ultra-Italian DC. The same with our head coach.
The Jags last year were dead last in takeaways on defense. This year, teams hardly dare press the ball downfield in fear of one of Jacksonville’s many ballhawks swooping in and making a house call. It’s an understatement to comment on how far this specific unit has come.
Remember last year when Josh Hines-Allen was fat? This year (or more specifically, the second half of the year) the Good Josh Allen has been a terror alongside Travon Walker. DaVon Hamilton might be the best defensive tackle in the game while he is playing against actually one of the best DTs in the game right now in Arik Armstead.
This defense is special. The Bad Josh Allen better come correct or this Jags defense might do to him what vampires did to his wife in Sinners.
Johnson’s pick was (surprisingly) the only pick of the day for the Jags which means no usual Al’s Pizza shoutout but we do have an AFC South Champions shoutout from our friends at Al’s. For Jags fans who use code DUUUVALSPIZZA online through Tuesday, Jan. 6, you can get 50% off pizza. Shoutout to the defense for supplying pizzas to the masses all year long.
Special Freaking Teams
This guy Cam Little might have a future in this whole football thing. He might have made a decent choice with his career path.
Though Little may be slight of stature, his leg sure isn’t. Former Jags QB coach and current Titans interim head coach so graciously called a timeout before halftime and having his backup quarterback throw an ill-advised pass which set up Little to try a 67-yarder. Of course, Little nailed the kick and set himself in the NFL record books for second longest kick in history.
The owner of the longest kick in NFL history? Oh, also Little. Trent Baalke is somewhere smiling.
Outside of Little, punt-god Logan Cooke boomed a couple, including a 60-yarder to keep on flipping the field for the Jags. Those two are quite literally as good as it gets which makes it so confusing neither of them got a Pro Bowl nod.
DeeJay Dallas and Washington each did fine jobs in the return category. Dallas is actually fun to watch and seems like he’s extremely close to busting one to the crib. We all know Washington is liable to do that at any moment after he reverses field four or five times.
While the offense and defense have been playing at league-best rates, so too has the special teams unit. It isn’t terribly easy to make heroes out of your kicker, punter and even your long snapper but this organization has done so. It’s just another reason to smile when thinking about this Jags team and its trajectory.
When your offense needs just a first down and change to set up a field goal try, you have something good. The Jags have that with their special teams unit. Get Little a grill too while we’re at it.
LOSERS
Whatever Those First Couple Minutes Were
Ok, even the Jags fan wearing the most rose colored glasses can say that the Jags started slowly against the Titans. The first play on offense was a huge sack on Lawrence and the defense let Ward move all over them for an opening drive touchdown.
Did the Titans do much of anything at all after that? No sir. Is it cause for concern? No, likely not.
That is two weeks in a row in must-win games where the Jags did start slowly. The start against the Colts might’ve been slower than this one, but still slow nonetheless. If there had to be a loser this week, it’d simply be the Jags didn’t come for the throat immediately. It just took about 10 minutes.
Injuries??
Anyone still a little emotional after seeing that hit on Washington?
The literal worst time for injuries for a playoff team would be in a blowout win right before said playoffs. For a little bit, it looked like the Jags had come across maybe the worst injury luck in history in such a game.
Thomas, Greg Newsome, Strange and Washington all suffered sort of “freak” injuries at one point or another during the game. BTJ was evaluated for a concussion and returned, Newsome dealt with another shoulder injury, Strange just looked to be dead tired and Washington looked like he had suffered a nasty concussion before coming back on the field a few plays later. All the aforementioned players returned and finished out the game, but for a few moments it looked like the season was hanging by an increasingly thinner thread with that rash of ailments.
The one injury to really take note of was to starting left tackle Cole Van Lanen who left Sunday’s game late in the fourth quarter. Van Lanen spoke to reporters postgame which is obviously a good sign and has been given no further injury designation. Hopefully it’s nothing, but certainly something to monitor heading into the playoffs. Van Lanen was just handed a big contract and has played a solid part in the recent success for the Jags offense. They will need him as long as the Jags keep playing.
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