Jacksonville vs New England (JAX -5.5, 42.5)
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Patriots vs. Jaguars | Sunday, October 20, 2024
After suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of rookie Caleb Williams at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last week, the Jags now have to travel across town to play their second consecutive London game, this time against the New England Patriots. This is a battle between two 1-win teams, and you have to wonder whether Doug Pederson will be the second coach this year to lose his job if his team can’t get the job done this weekend.
Frankly, the writing may already be on the wall for Pederson, with many arguing that he would have lost his job already if the Jags weren’t staying in London for an extra week. The on-field production has been abysmal, and the sideline camera shots of his players during the closing stages of last week's game showed a team that appeared to have completely given up. They look like a team whose coach was about to get fired, and even a win this weekend may not save Doug.
The Jaguars are ranked 31st for both points conceded per game with 29.7, and yards conceded per game with 390. They have invested a hell of a lot in the defensive line, but have nothing to show for it, ranking just outside the bottom 10 for both sacks and pressure rate. On offense, things aren’t much better; they are only putting up 18.8 points per game, which is 22nd in the NFL, and last week's embarrassing loss to Chicago featured some comically bad drops.
Trevor Lawrence, fresh off his monster $275 million contract extension, has been incredibly underwhelming, completing just 60% of his passes on the year, and missing some incredibly important throws in big moments. Of course, it didn’t help that his receivers kept dropping the ball, but it has been incredibly underwhelming so far, considering the money he is getting paid.
Things aren’t much prettier on the New England side of things, averaging just 13.8 points per game, which is 31st in the NFL. The defense has also been massively underwhelming, but the season has been injected with a bit of excitement, thanks to the promotion of rookie quarterback Drake Maye to the starting role.
Maye had an incredibly tough assignment to deal with in his first-ever start, but he came out of it looking pretty good, passing for 243 yards, 3 touchdowns, and 2 interceptions. Somehow, he already has more passing touchdowns than Jacoby Brissett, despite the latter having started five games this year, compared to Drake’s one. His first touchdown was a lovely deep sideline pass to Keyshon Boutte, giving New England fans a much-needed boost in this difficult season so far.
This certainly stands as another favorable matchup for Drake Maye, going up against a downtrodden Jags unit that just gave up four passing touchdowns to fellow rookie Caleb Williams. The only issue for Maye is that his group of offensive playmakers is far less exciting, with Demario Douglas leading the way with 245 receiving yards on the year. Still, Maye will have learned a lot from that first outing, and perhaps he can use this good matchup to continue building some chemistry and help his wide receivers emerge.
Unfortunately for UK fans, this is a game between two of the NFL’s worst teams. It might not be pretty, but at least they get an up-close look at an intriguing rookie quarterback prospect in Maye.
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Game Total Over 42.5