GAME Overview ::
By MIKE JOHNSON >>
- The Jacksonville passing game flowed primarily through the Jaguars’ youth in Week 15, with WR Brian Thomas Jr. and TE Brenton Strange dominating the targets.
- Las Vegas will likely get QB Aidan O’Connell back from his injured knee that kept him out of last week’s loss to the Falcons.
- Raiders rookie TE Brock Bowers needs 15 receptions over his last three games to tie Puka Nacua for the most catches ever for a rookie.
- This is a matchup between two of the seven NFL teams who have won three or fewer games this season.
- Las Vegas has scored over 20 points in a game only once since September.
HOW JACKSONVILLE WILL TRY TO WIN ::
The Jaguars are basically playing out the string at this point, sitting with a 3-11 record and with many of their key players out for the season. Jacksonville has stayed relatively competitive recently despite its record, however, winning only one of the last seven games but with five of those losses in that span coming by a combined 23 points. They did have a wild 52-6 loss to the Lions mixed in there, but Detroit has been one of the top teams in the NFL and that outcome has been an outlier. As a matter of fact, an astounding eight of the Jaguars’ 11 losses have been one-score games. The three blowouts were against the Lions and Bills (two of the top teams in the league) as well as the Bears in an awkward game in London. The grander point here is that Jacksonville’s games have been much closer than one would expect just from looking at the Jaguars’ record.
The Jaguars have a matchup this week against a team that is right near them in the standings, and they should therefore enter the game feeling good about their chances. The Jaguars’ pass rate relative to expectation has dipped over the last four weeks without franchise QB Trevor Lawrence, as the team tries to protect and hide Mac Jones a bit. Due to all of the injuries they have sustained, the main pass catchers have been rookie sensation Thomas and Strange, their second-year tight end. Thomas is one of the more exciting young receivers in the league, while Strange is a physically gifted young tight end who is now in an every-down role and who Jones clearly trusts. The two of them combined for a whopping 26 targets last week on 46 Mac Jones pass attempts, for a massive 57% combined target share. Some other guys are mixing in, but clearly the trust of Jones and the coaching staff is primarily with those two players at this point. The Raiders have PFF’s 32nd-graded coverage unit, and both players, along with secondary receiver Parker Washington, should have plenty of opportunities this week. The Raiders also lost star edge rusher Maxx Crosby for the season, which should mean plenty of time in the pocket for Jones to wait for one of them to get open.
As noted earlier, Jacksonville is running it a bit more when it can right now. Travis Etienne and Tank Bigsby are splitting the running back work fairly evenly, with Etienne getting more of the passing game snaps and production. Las Vegas is the 25th-ranked DVOA run defense, so there is no reason why the Jaguars would enter this game concerned about being able to get some production from their running game. Over the last two weeks, Bigsby has 32 opportunities while Etienne has 27. Things fluctuate based on game script and the “hot hand” so it is hard to trust either, but the matchup this week seems to indicate at least one of them is likely to have a serviceable game.
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