Jaguars Journal
by Sam Kouvaris
December 26, 2010
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A Loss To Washington
From the opening kickoff, things seemed out of sync. A good return by the Washington Redskins was padded by a facemask penalty by, of all players, Josh Scobee and the Redskins opened with three points. Without Maurice Jones Drew in the game, (inactive because of a knee injury) the Jaguars offense was ineffective at best.
Following his recent form, David Garrard overthrew Zach Miller on a seam route on the left and was promptly intercepted. Washington promptly scored a touchdown to make it 10-0 in the first quarter. For the rest of the half, a series of miscues on both sides made it a bad football game and the Jaguars trailed 10-7 at the half.
Again, Daryl Smith was the shining light on defense while Mike Thomas was a one-man gang on offense. He accounted for most of the yardage and caught the TD pass to bring the Jaguars within three.
The second half opened with the Jaguars tying the game on a Scobee field goal from 34-yards out. Thomas and Jason Hill made big catches during the drive but the running game wasn’t getting the job done, gaining only 44 yards in the first three quarters.
Washington mounted one drive at the beginning of the 4th quarter, converting key third downs on passes from Rex Grossman to Santana Moss twice and scored with 8 minutes to play to lead 17-10.
As has been the case for most of the second half of the season, the Jaguars defense and special teams kept them in the game. They stopped Grossman and the Redskins twice in the fourth quarter and a nice return by Mike Thomas put the Jaguars in position to tie the game. When the Redskins showed blitz, the Jaguars had the perfect play called. Garrard ran a quarterback draw and there was nobody there. The TD tied the game at 17 and sent it into overtime.
Looking for a big return by Deji Karim, similar to the one in the Raiders win, the Jaguars got just the opposite as the ball skipped past Karim and back to the five. By the time he picked it up, the defense was all over him and the Jaguars got the ball on the eleven.
In overtime, the quarterback has to be especially careful with the ball, and that’s exactly what Garrard didn’t do. On third down, he blooped a little pass toward Marcedes Lewis that was easily intercepted at the twenty. Two plays later the Redskins kicked a field goal and the game was over 20-17.
For all the good fortune the Jaguars have experienced this year, it was a huge disappointment to the fans at the game who fully expected the team to pull off another miracle.
Instead, they drop their second straight, show their vulnerabilities and continue to need help to get to the playoffs. At 8-7 there are still some possibilities that come down to the last week of the season but none of them happen if they can’t beat Houston on the road.
Ironically, Jaguars fans will be rooting for the Titans next week against the Colts. Nine and seven doesn’t seem like much improvement over last year’s 7-9 but it probably maintains the status quo for players and coaches. Eight and eight is a different story. That would mean they dropped their final three games and Owner Wayne Weaver might decide his franchise needs some "freshening" in order to move forward.
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