The Jacksonville Jaguars embarrassed the Steelers on Sunday, and they handed the Steelers a loss that makes the AFC South look a lot more muddled. We started the season thinking that the Jaguars would be in the bottom of the division, and now we are wondering if they can compete with the Texans for the division title. The Titans seem to have fallen out of the conversation with Marcus Mariota hurt, and that leaves the Jags to compete with Houston. This is a tale of two defenses and two completely different offenses.
Everything is different now
Marcus Mariota is injured, but he was supposed to be the great white hope for the Titans.
He was going to be brilliant this season, but they have been very inconsistent even before he got hurt. Blake Bortles does not look like a bum anymore, and he has Leonard Fournette to hand the ball to. The Texans have Deshaun Watson, and the Colts are muddling along as a pathetic team with no sense of direction. If the Titans cannot win this division, we are left with two great defenses, two differing offenses, and two teams that should not be this good yet.
They silently grew
The offense in Pittsburgh is supposed to be amazing, and they looked absolutely dreadful against Jacksonville. That makes the Steelers very vulnerable to other teams, and it shows that the defense in Jacksonville is elite.
We know that the Houston defense is elite, and that means we have to analyze the offenses because they are run completely differently.
Jacksonville runs the ball
Jacksonville is willing to run the ball because they have Leonard Fournette. The Texans do not do that, and they will depend on the legs of Deshaun Watson. These two teams will score in very different ways if they score at all against each other, and the Texans have more hope only because Watson looks like the offensive rookie of the year.
However, you cannot count out the Jaguars because their defense has shown time and again that they are extremely good. We once thought we could write off the Jags, but they have shown us that that would be very wrong indeed.
The Jags have a better coach
Firing Gus Bradley for Doug Marrone was a genius move by the Jags. They saw that Marrone got screwed out of his job offer in New York, and they decided to give him a chance when they were done with Gus Bradley. They knew that Marrone had not been given enough help in Buffalo, and it appears that the Jags have changed their culture. The confluence of these events makes the Jags a contender.
