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Jaguars, Jones-Drew muscle up
Following a week of frustration and waiting, the Jacksonville Jaguars flexed their muscles against a less-than-formidable foe in the St. Louis Rams, winning on a game-winning field goal in overtime.
In a game overshadowed by many things, including a franchise-low attendance record, the Jaguars managed to knock off the winless Rams 23-20, improving to 3-3 on the season and staying tied with Houston for second in the AFC South.
Perhaps the biggest question going into the game was if Maurice Jones-Drew would back up his talk about a lackluster offensive line and his frustration with the play calling. Jones-Drew lashed out last week following the team’s worst loss in coach Jack Del Rio’s seven years.
133 yards on 33 carries and three touchdowns seemed to do the trick. After putting up a zero against the Seattle Seahawks a week ago, the Jaguars managed to post nearly 500 total yards and 33 first downs, nearly triple that of St. Louis. Quarterback David Garrard threw for a career-high 335 yards on 43 attempts, and Mike Sims-Walker and Torry Holt both had 100 receiving yards. Holt also got to celebrate his first win against his former team.
Jones-Drew made himself look like a genius, especially after a tough week and his questionable comments.
“I just wanted to show people my frustration of losing,” Jones-Drew said. “I feel we are on the verge of being great, but we just have to feel the same way about frustration. I lashed out a little bit. I think I went overboard, but the coaches understood after I talked to them and told them what it was about.”
Overboard? Maybe. Motivating? Probably. The Jaguars lost to the Cincinnati Bengals in 2008, who came into the game at 0-8. So a win against St. Louis was never going to be easy. And easy it was not.
Jacksonville took the lead 13-10 on a Jones-Drew one-yard touchdown run with a little over 8 minutes remaining in the game. But Garrard threw his second interception of the game and Leonard Little returned it for a touchdown with 4:36 left. The Jaguars came right back though. A 75-yard drive was capped off by another Jones-Drew touchdown run, which gave the Jaguars a 20-17 lead, and what seemed to be a victory. But a 36-yard pass from Rams quarterback Marc Bulger to Stephen Jackson put the Rams deep in Jaguars territory. With 4 seconds remaining, the Rams turned to kicker Josh Brown to kick the 27-yard field goal to tie the game at 20-20.
Coach Steve Spagnuolo could have taken a shot at the end zone with 7 seconds left, but instead decided to tie the game.
“It was too close,” Spagnuolo said. “We never wanted something bad to happen and we just couldn’t take the chance. I think it was the right thing to do.”
Jacksonville won the coin toss and marched down the field in overtime. With 8 minutes to play, Josh Scobee nailed to game-winning 36-yard field goal. Jacksonville improved to 3-3 and St. Louis fell to 0-6 and currently has the NFL’s longest losing streak at 16 games. That could move to 17 games, though, when the Rams play Indianapolis (5-0) next week.
Despite a big win and staying in the hunt for a division title, the Jaguars posted an attendance of 42,088, a franchise low.
But Garrard knows what his team is capable of.
“This offense can battle even when the situation looks kind of bleak,” Garrard said. “That was a good test for us to be able to move forward.”
Jacksonville heads into its bye week, then off to play another winless team, the Tennessee Titans (0-6), which also has its bye week.
Information from ESPN.com was used in this article.
