Jacksonville Jaguars at New England Patriots: AFC Championship Prediction
By Erik Lambert
The NFL is a fascinating league. Things that happened before tend to happen again. Like the Jacksonville Jaguars at New England Patriots matchup.
Exactly 10 years ago in 2007 these two teams met in the playoffs. Almost exactly 10 years before that in 1996 they met in the playoffs. The wheel turns and tends to bring about the same event over and over. The Jaguars have played the Patriots in Foxborough a total of three times in the playoffs. Each times the Patriots were the winner. In fact Jacksonville has only defeated New England once in their entire franchise history.
This is the history that team is battling against going into the AFC championship. Never mind the fact New England has won two of the last three Super Bowls and haven’t lost a home playoff game to a warm weather or dome team since 1978. Why in the world would anybody thing the Jaguars have a chance? Well, there are some reasons.
Biggest subplot: The hand of Tom Brady
This wouldn’t have been a though 48 hours ago but things have changed rapidly. Due to an incident involving a practice collision, Patriots superstar Tom Brady is suddenly looking questionable for the game. He’s now missed back-to-back practices as reports indicate he suffered some sort of hand injury when a teammate ran into it by accident. Some worry it’s worse than New England has let on. Either way it’s definitely a story worth tracking. Brady is the absolute lynch pin to this game. If he can’t go, there’s no Jimmy Garoppolo to save them.
Key matchup: Calais Campbell vs. Shaq Mason
The key factor that transformed the Jaguars defense into the juggernaut its become was the acquisition of defensive tackle Calais Campbell in free agency. He produced a whopping 14.5 sacks this season. When he gets the motor running it’s very hard to stop him, and it’s also much harder to attack the Jaguars defense as a whole. Jacksonville is 8-2 this season when he has at least half a sack in a game. They’re 2-4 when he doesn’t. It falls primarily on guard Shaq Mason to stop him from feasting on the largely immobile and now injured Brady.
The Patriots win if: They force Blake Bortles into mistakes
One of the reasons Jacksonville has done so well to this point? Their quarterback Blake Bortles has taken care of the football. In two playoff games he’s yet to throw an interception. During the season they were 2-6 in games where he threw it at least once to the other team. They were a perfect 8-0 when he didn’t. The Patriots have to know this going in. Their defense has long thrived off forcing turnovers in big games. If they can stop the run and force Bortles to throw, the opportunities will be there.
The Jaguars win if: They score four touchdowns
This may sound overly simplified but it’s true. You want to be the Patriots? You need to score points. In the three games New England lost this season, their opponent scored a minimum of 27 points. This basically means Jacksonville has to put four touchdowns on the board in order to have a reasonable chance of knocking off the champs. One thing is for sure. Brady is Brady and no matter how good the defense he finds a way to score. History shows that if a team can’t stop him, then the best thing to do is outrun him.
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Prediction: Jaguars win 28-26
I’ve had the worst luck the entire playoffs picking what I thought was the obvious choices. So at this point? Screw it I’m going for the home run. The Jaguars match up well across the board against New England. Their defense is among the best in the league and the Patriots defense was only 20th against the run. They also proved they could play in a hostile environment at Pittsburgh. Jacksonville has made a living of proving doubters wrong all year. This could be their time.