Starting the game, the Jaguars defense looked like it had a bit of a chip on their shoulder. Last in the league in just about every measurable category, their pride is injured. Former Jaguars defensive end and current radio color analyst Jeff Lageman said as much in the pregame show,

“These guys are veterans. Two won a Super Bowl last year. Nobody is more frustrated and angry than they are. I expect them to play better.”

He turned out to be prophetic early on. When you look at the array of talent on offense for San Diego, it’s hard not to shudder based on the Jaguars lack of ability to stop anybody. Phillip Rivers is one of the top five quarterbacks in the league. Antonio Gates might go to the Hall of Fame. Add a running game and wide receivers who can fly, and you have the makings of a blowout.

But early in the half the Jaguars defensive line put the stops on the Chargers running game and harassed Rivers enough to keep it close.

The offense also did it’s job, putting up 12 first downs in the first half on 15-17 passing by rookie Quarterback Blake Bortles. Making his first NFL start, Bortles looked poised and made the tough throws when he needed to guiding the Jaguars to 14 points.

Give Rivers credit though. He was 16-18 in the first half for 207 yards and two TD’s, the last one a beautiful crossing route to Eddie Royal (his second TD catch of the day) beating Winston Guy to give the Chargers a 17-14 lead. Giving up 17 points to the Chargers in one half is respectable, only trailing by 3 after 30 minutes is like being on a different planet than last week.

To start the second half, the Chargers took the kickoff and marched down the field in 9 plays, a 24 yard Rivers to Malcolm Floyd TD pass for the score. 24-14 SD. Demetrius McCray was in man coverage against Floyd and Rivers got just the coverage and time he was looking for. When a backup corner comes in the game, the top QB’s recognize it and go after them.

When you go with a rookie QB you’re going to have growing pains. Bortles was baited into an interception by veteran DB Brandon Flowers. While Cecil Shorts didn’t do him any favors by just standing there, Bortles didn’t see Flowers hiding behind Shorts and thought he was open. Instead Flowers stepped up and picked it off. The defense held them to a FG, 27-14. Bortles will learn not to throw that pass but Shorts has to keep moving after he sits in his spot and isn’t the primary target.

Through three quarters the defense had only given up 22 yards on the ground but a whopping 353 in the air. I wouldn’t say the offense didn’t help a bit because they did put together a few sustained drives but somewhere, pass coverage and pass rush aren’t getting the job done. Once Gratz left the game the Jaguars were putting together makeshift coverage, especially in their nickel package and Rivers always found the open man.

I wasn’t sure what Offensive Coordinator Jedd Fisch was doing on offense in the 3rd quarter either, constantly going to the short route and some kind of misdirection. Nothing downfield. Maybe he didn’t think the young offensive line could protect well enough but occasionally you have to air it out. And even though they had some success with Gerhart running the ball on third and short, they didn’t stick to it and turned it over on downs. If you have a power back on your roster, give him the ball, twice if necessary, to gain a yard.

The rest of the game was try this, try that for both teams. Bortles did make an incredible athletic play to hit Clay Harbor on 3rd down for 30 yards to keep one drive alive. Last week, he threw that ball in that situation across the field and it was picked off. He admitted after the game he learned from that play and looked downfield instead.

While there are no moral victories in pro sports, this one felt a little better with flashes of what the possibilities might be.

“It’s about consistency,” Zane Beadles said in the locker room. “Blake’s right, you have to make those plays over and over and while we did it in the first half, we didn’t in the second.”

The defense is suffering from almost the exact same thing. First and second down are going well, but big chunks of yardage are being given up on third down, especially to teams that can throw the ball.

“We need consistency,” Andre Branch said. “All of us need to do our job. On every play. It doesn’t work any other way unless you do your job and trust what we’re doing.”

I wouldn’t say Branch called out any of his teammates but it was obvious that he was biting his tongue, not naming names but knowing where the problems lie.

Somewhere in the secondary, the Jaguars need help and need to get the kind of consistent play that would give them a chance to stay in games. Josh Evans replaced Winston Guy in the lineup this week, but with the injury to Dwayne Gratz, Guy was pressed into service in the nickel package. He was the player chasing Eddie Royal on his second TD. That’s the kind of play that lacks consistency and enables other teams to get the big play.

This week the Jaguars will work on that, but if they don’t get it fixed, the Steelers Ben Roethlisberger will have a similar day as Phillip Rivers.

And nobody wants to see that again.

There are a lot of “firsts” this week for the Jaguars and Blake Bortles. The Jaguars rookie quarterback is preparing for his first start in a regular season NFL game. While you’d think he was excited about it, his comments seem to say the opposite.

“I’ve prepared like I was going to start every week. I learned that, and a lot of other things from watching Chad (Henne)” Bortles said in front of the assembled media before the Wednesday practice. “I’m going to go play football. I’m going to be as ready as I can. We’re going to play Sunday either way so I might as well try to be as ready as I can be.”

Bortles was named the starter after playing the second half against the Colts and helping produce 17 points.

“My focus is on this team and making us better,” he noted. “I don’t have a lot of time for anything else.”

“He has the pen last,” Offensive Coordinator Jedd Fisch said before practice as well. “I asked him what he wanted to take out (of the game plan) and he gave me a couple of plays right away. He has to be comfortable with what we’re doing.”

Being named the starter, Bortles is sitting “In the first chair” in the quarterback meeting room according to Fisch.

“He’s been second chair. He hasn’t had to run the remote, meet with the Oline, the receivers when the coaches aren’t in there. It’s his first time. .”

“He went to meetings, more meetings,” according to Head Coach Gus Bradley. “His demeanor didn’t change. He’s the same. Competitiveness didn’t change. His mentality hasn’t changed a bit.”

Bradley says often “The game isn’t too big for him” when talking about Bortles. That seems to be the case so far. He likes to play football and while that sounds pretty basic, there have been some guys in that job with the Jaguars who didn’t particularly like the game, or didn’t act like it. To Bortles, it’s football, and he enjoys it.

“I had no idea if it would be this year or five years down the road when I got to start in an NFL game. I think it was huge to be with Chad and watch him prepare every week.”

As the starter, Bortles will take a majority of the snaps in each offensive period in practice. “It helps the more reps you get. You get a feel for it after doing it over and over in games and in practice.”

It’s a role reversal between he and Henne, but the transition seems to be smooth.

“I’ll be his biggest cheerleader. I hope he’s successful,” Henne said.

No doubt it was a tough week for Jaguars Head Coach Gus Bradley. After being overwhelmed in Washington, Bradley’s charge was to “fix it” and fix it fast. After giving up 10 sacks, the offensive line was the first place to look. So after looking at video of the game, Bradley announced some changes on the line among the starters and cut Cameron Bradfield, the player who started at right tackle just two days prior.

“It’s hard,” Bradley said this week of making those changes. “Guys come in here, work hard, do what you ask and then things change and you have to do something so yeah, it’s hard. But everybody understands it’s the NFL and we’ll move forward.” It is a harsh reality sometimes that the league is built on performance and if that disappears, so does a playe’rs spot on the team. Bradfield had been a good swing guy for the Jaguars, playing in several spots. But he was obviously beaten on some of those 10 sacks and based on the “accountability” mantra espoused by Bradley; somebody had to be held accountable.

That leaves Sam Young at right tackle, Brandon Linder at right guard, Luke Bowanko at center, Zane Beadles at left guard and Luke Joeckel at left tackle. They have differing amounts of experience but pretty much any way you cut it, the Jaguars are starting four rookies up front.

So where does that put the team in Bradley’s goal of a “Race to Maturity? Agreed, these players have talent and as the head coach has said a couple of times this week, the “look the part.” And they do. At about 6’5″ and 320 at each position, when they stand there, they look the part. But playing the part is a different story. Perhaps if you’re going to have growing pains, why not have them all together. Bradley agreed that there’s a way to look at these guys progressing as a positive.

“They all want to get there fast, and maybe doing it together will create some camaraderie,” the head coach noted when asked if they could all get to maturity together.

Getting their offensive line to play solid and consistent football is a priority for the Jaguars because for what they want to do on offense, without and offensive line doing their job, they can’t get anything done.

Throw the inexperience at wide receiver in the mix and you don’t have much of a chance for production on offense. With Cecil Shorts nursing a hamstring, the team has relied on mostly rookies and second year Mike Brown as the receiving corps. Shorts might return this week and Alan Hurns is also listed as probable. Marquis Lee has already been declared out. So again, not much experience at wide receiver could hurt the passing game performance. Subtract Marcedes Lewis from the equation because of the high ankle sprain, and the who offense remains in question.

So for all of the problems they’ve had in the last six quarters, quarterback Chad Henne has performed as well, if not better than expected. Although he took responsibility for a couple of sacks last week, the pressure Henne has been under has been daunting. Nonetheless, he’s stood in there and for the most part, thrown the ball to the open receiver. He’s had numerous drops, and wrong routes run by receivers but he hasn’t complained, despite the pounding.

Calls to put Blake Bortles in the game are premature, considering the state of disarray the rest of the offense is currently in. Getting something consistent and something you can lean on will allow the coaches to put Bortles in the game to start the process toward what they hope is consistent winning.

“When it’s time to put Blake in the game, you’ll know it,” I said to Bradley during the taping of his show.

“That’s right,” he said, confident that he’ll recognize the right situation.

It’s up for debate what the “Top 20 Moments” are in the 20 years the Jaguars have played in the NFL. And actually, some of the moments were before they started playing football at all. There might be even a debate about what the number one moment in team history could be, but we picked the announcement of a team as our number one. After 14 years of pursuing the NFL through “Colt Fever” and the USFL, when NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said the name “Jacksonville” as the next franchise in the league, it’s as if time stopped for a second or so and the city would never be the same.

Second on our list is the return trip from Denver after beating the Broncos in the Divisional Playoff game in 1996, 30-27 despite being heavy underdogs. At Channel 4 we stayed on the air continuously after the game up until the team returned to Jacksonville. Perhaps because we were on the air and a lot of people were excited and watching, fans spontaneously flocked to the stadium, looking for a communal place to celebrate. City leaders didn’t know what to do, but did the right thing by mobilizing some staff and security and getting the cooperation of the JSO, opened the stadium and turned the lights on. No concessions, no game, just a place to high-five fellow revelers. It must have been some scene from the team charter when they flew over the stadium and rocked their wings in acknowledgement. Fans wouldn’t give up and the team buses brought the players to the stadium for a victory lap around the field. This is a pretty good candidate for the top spot on this list and I could probably be convinced either way.

Without the win in Denver the celebration wouldn’t have happened so the game vs. the Broncos is our third choice. A famous writer in the Denver press box heckled me before the game asking what we were doing there since we were “a USFL team anyway.” I ignored him then (as I do now although he’s risen to unexplained national prominence) but did say after the game walking out of the locker room, “USFL in the Conference Championship game, NFL staying home.” I guess it’s no wonder he hasn’t spoken to me since! (Which is OK) I remember standing on a rooftop in Denver doing live television in about 12 degrees for 4 hours. Our field producer happened to be my boss at the time (he had lived in Denver) and told me to “come inside and warm up.” I was so into it I just said,, “Really? Our team just beat the Broncos and is going to the AFC Title game and I’m coming inside because I’m cold? No!” We both got a laugh out of that in the subsequent years.

I guess most of these “moments” get onto the list because if you’ve followed the Jaguars; you know right where you were when they happened. That’s why Morten Anderson missing the field goal that put the Jaguars in the playoffs in the first place in 1996 occupies the 4th spot. I’ve had so many people over the years say, “I was standing in my seat,” or “I was crossing my fingers screaming from the upper deck,” when they talk about the win over the Falcons here at home. I was part of the “I can’t watch” segment. It’s the only time I’ve ever done that, but I couldn’t bear to watch the dream go away in an instant. That’s why I turned my back on it and stood next to my friend and colleague Todd on the sidelines when Anderson lined up for the chip shot to win it. I remember Todd saying very calmly (the first time) “He missed it.” I was like, “What?!” And then he screamed, “He missed it, he missed it” and jumped up and down with the rest of the people in the stadium.

People still talk about Tony Boselli waving Jason Taylor downfield as the Jaguars beat the Dolphins on national television. It was one of the validations of the teams of the ’90’s. It’s in the top five. In our sixth spot, the playoff win over the Dolphins was such a demolition that the game seemed to be over just when it started. Some think it might be the best home win in franchise history. It ended the careers of both Dan Marino and Jimmy Johnson.

In defining a “moment” it’s a pretty nebulous term ,but for this list it’s the times you have seared in your memory of Jaguars history. Driving to the stadium for the first game in 1995 is a memory most people who lived here then will remember whether they were Jaguars fans or not. An NFL game in our city with our team? It’s seemed impossible but there it was, Jaguars vs. Oilers right next to the Green Bay, New England and Pittsburgh scores. It made it real. Mark Brunell’s run against Denver in the win there makes the list at number 8 because it might have been the first time most fans thought, “Hey, this team is hot and pretty good. They might be able to pull this off!”

A few weeks into the inaugural season, the Jaguars win against the Oilers in Houston makes the list as a milestone and a relief that the team wouldn’t go winless in their expansion season. An unproven coach coming out of college with a bunch of expansion castoffs was a complete unknown.

Going to Pittsburgh and beating the Steelers in 2007 was made possible by an improbable run by QB David Garrard. Steeler fans to this day scream “What about the holding” when you bring that play up. That certainly makes it memorable at number ten. Eleventh was hotly debated but the way Josh Scobee ran around the field with his helmet in the air after beating the Colts with a 59 yard field goal in 2010 qualifies. Maybe because the Colts were the Jaguars nemesis at the time, but we thought it belonged here. And ditto for Fred Taylor’s run against the Dolphins to open the scoring. Never really given his due while he was playing, Taylor showed the speed and power that very few backs have for a moment many Jaguars, and Dolphins fans won’t forget.

We put the Jack Del Rio firing and the Wayne Weaver selling the team as one entry, 13th on the list. Weaver had kept his intention to sell the team so quiet that when he fired Del Rio, he didn’t even tell Jack when he sent him home. It wasn’t a surprise that Del Rio was shown the door but in retrospect, firing Jack before he got here was probably one of Shad Khan’s “asks” when the deal was getting done. (Or maybe Weaver just wanted the pleasure of doing it.) It also solidified Jacksonville as the Jaguars home. Despite the constant drumbeat regarding the team moving to LA, the sale to Shad Khan was Weaver’s parting gift to the city. He acknowledged that he had spurned offers from “groups in California” instead opting for Khan and his commitment to keep the team in town. So far, Khan hasn’t done anything to make anybody think to the contrary.

In fact, 14th on the list is one of those wild things that Khan thinks up and then makes happen: World’s largest video boards. New technology, new look, when they were unveiled in July of 2014 it was hard not to be impressed. More than 53,000 showed up in a scene reminiscent of the “old days” where people just liked coming to the stadium to be together. A nice soccer match, a concert and the unveiling were all nice but “being there” was the thing that counted.

Our 15th selection happened on the road, or it might have been higher. Fred Taylor ran all over the Steelers for 275 yards at Three Rivers, the most for an opponent all-time vs. Pittsburgh. At the time, the Jaguars were in the AFC Central and Tom Coughlin had used the Steelers as the gold standard when building his team. Manhandling the vaunted Steeler defense by running it right at them put the Jaguars on the map as a tough, physical team.

Sixteenth is a little obscure and wasn’t seen by many people but everybody who was there says the same thing: “That was really cool.” When Aaron Ross signed with the Jaguars he was the second best athlete in his household. His wife, Sonja Richards Ross was an Olympian and the favorite in the 200 meters in London. Head Coach Mike Mularkey arranged for her race to be shown live on the screens in the stadium and surprised his team with a shortened practice and a walk onto the field to watch. Richards Ross lost the lead in the middle of the race but finished strong to win the gold. Perhaps the best outcome any football coach could have asked for to show his team how to get the job done. Mularkey never got that chance, unlucky again as the Head Coach in the wrong situation. Very cool moment though.

Three plays make the 17-19 spots on the list. Mike Thomas’ catch of the Hail Mary for a TD is still talked about, perhaps mainly because it’s so improbable it generally never happens. If you were at that New Orleans game here and remember it being cold and dank, the lateral filled TD they scored in the games waning moments certainly woke up the crowd. And when John Kearney (who later kicked for the Jaguars) missed the PAT, it was a stunning, head-scratching moment for everybody who was there. And in the Jaguars first appearance on Monday Night Football, it seemed as if the stadium was the center of the universe that night against the rival Steelers. Chris Hudson’s return of a blocked kick for a TD sealed the victory for the Jaguars, but Bill Cowher’s half-step onto the field and the moment you thought he might actually punch Hudson is something considerably memorable.

Tagging on the 20th most memorable moment was debatable between several candidates. Chris Hanson hitting his own leg with an axe in the middle of the locker room while “chopping wood” made the list maybe because it’s so preposterous. When Del Rio put that piece of wood in there to symbolize his whole silly “keep chopping wood” theme for a team that was losing, just about everybody thought it was a bad idea and a disaster waiting to happen. As a self-fulfilling prophecy and a memorable moment, it certainly qualifies.

Our honorable mention moments include the loss to the Titans in the AFC Championship game in 2000. It could have easily been anywhere after the top 4 or 5 on this list but I think it’s still too painful for the Jaguars faithful.

Here’s a look at the list.

• 1 Getting a team – Tagliabue announcement
• 2 Return from Denver
• 3 Beating Denver
• 4 Anderson Missed Kick
• 5 Boselli waving on at Jason Taylor
• 6 62-7 win over Dolphins
• 7 1st game vs. Houston
• 8 Brunell Run vs. Denver
• 9 1st win in Houston
• 10 Garrard run vs. Pitt
• 11 Scobee 59 yarder vs. Colts OCT 3 2010
• 12 Taylor 90-yard run vs. Miami
• 13 Del Rio firing/Weaver sells team
• 14 Video Board unveiling
• 15 Taylor game vs. Pitt
• 16 Sonja Richards Ross video board watch
• 17 Mike Thomas Hail Mary
• 18 Saints lateral and missed PAT (John Kearney)
• 19 Cowher fake punch on Chris Hudson Sept 12 1997
• 20 Chris Hanson Chopping wood

Honorable mention:

• Beating Buffalo in 1996 Playoffs
• Khan approved by NFL Owners
• James Stewart 5 TD’s vs. Philadelphia here
• Jimmy Smith game vs. Baltimore
• Losing AFC Title game to Titans