Blake Bortles is looking at the tennessee Titans and wondering if they can even compete with his surging Jaguars team. The Jaguars have improved quite a lot since the beginning of the season, and there are many people who think that the Jags could beat the Titans. The Titans are only 1.5 point favorites in the game, and they must work hard to make a good showing in Jacksonville to keep the AFC South close. The Jaguars could take control of this division with a win, and they must be very careful with a good Tennessee defense and offensive line.
The Tennessee defense
The Tennessee defense will give the Jaguars a hard time on Sunday, but it was already possible that the Jaguars might not score as much as they did last week. The Titans are a much better team, and they will let us know if the Jaguars won last week because they were good or the Texans were bad. It may be a combination of both, but the Titans defense will present a challenge the Jaguars must be prepared for.
The Tennessee offensive line
The defense in Jacksonville is not perfect, and they must be kept off the field as much as possible because they simply cannot stop the Tennessee offense. Marcus Mariota will have a good day, but it depends on how much he gets to see the field.
The Jaguars can control how much the Titans have the ball, and the Jags can run Leonard Fournette 40 times in the game to keep the ball out of Marcus Mariota's hands. Controlling tempo will make this Jags offense very good, and the Jaguars could negate the effect of the Titans offensive line.
A stale mate
These two teams could come to a stale mate because of the way that they have played early in the season.
These two teams could score 10 or 14 points, and they will decide the game when one team gets the last possession. The Jaguars could keep the ball for significant amounts of time, and it would help them have the ball for the final few seconds of the game. Leonard Fournette could be asked to run a lot near the end of the game to slow everything down, and the Jaguars could take that final field goal they need to win.
Visions of things to come
Could the Jaguars find a wild card spot if they continue to play like this? Yes, they could. The Jaguars could easily cause issues for the teams in the AFC West and North who thought they could make it to the playoffs via the wild card round, and the Jaguars will show us this weekend how capable they are of doing that. They are massively improved, and the Titans are not big favorites to win.
