Jaguars 36, Titans 22: Trevor Lawrence, Evan Engram Have Career Days in Massive Road Win
Seven days ago, the Jacksonville Jaguars suffered their worst loss of the Doug Pederson era. For the next week, all they would hear about would be the disappointment and embarrassment from a demoralizing loss.
Well, it would appear they took that personally.
A career passing day from Trevor Lawrence and four takeaways on defense led to the Jaguars picking up their biggest win of the season, a 36-22 beatdown of the Tennessee Titans in Nashville.
Lawrence threw for a career-high 368 yards on 71.4% passing, throwing three touchdowns and rushing for another as the Jaguars improved to 5-8 and won in Nashville for the first time since 2013.
The Jaguars seemingly came out ready to play on defense, with the first two plays resulting in an impressive Tyson Caldwell pass breakup on a flea-flicker and a stuff of Derrick Henry at the line of scrimmage.
But on 3rd-and-10, the Jaguars once again beat themselves, as rookie outside linebacker Travon Walker jumped offsides on a third-down the Titans otherwise threw an incompletion, allowing a 3rd-and-5 and a 15-yard completion to extend the drive.
It was on that same play where the Jaguars lost safety Andrew Wingard due to a shoulder injury. With the Jaguars already missing starting safety Andre Cisco due to a shoulder injury, this made a thin group even thinner as the Titans continued to march down the field on their opening drive.
Thanks to Walker's costly mistake, Henry was able to score on a three-yard touchdown to cap off a 10-play, 76-yard drive and put the Jaguars in an early 0-7 hole.
Walker made up for his mistake in a big, big way though, beating a tight end block and then fighting through the left tackle to win the edge, strip-sacking Ryan Tannehill for his 3.5 sack of the year.
After a Dawuane Smoot recovery on the fumble, the Jaguars quickly tied the game with a 12-yard touchdown pass to Evan Engram, his third touchdown of the season.
A 50-yard Henry run set-up a 10-yard touchdown by Chigoziem Okonkwo, allowing the Titans to put up 14 points on two of their first three drives. Henry rushed for 96 yards on 11 carries in the first quarter, a career-high for him in a game's opening-quarter.
Jacksonville's defense continued to allow chunk plays in the second quarter's opening drive, but Wingard made a big play in coverage in the place of Cisco, intercepting Tannehill to give the Jaguars the ball near midfield and becoming the first Jaguars to pick Tannehill off during his tenure with the Titans.
After starting 0-for-3, Lawrence completed seven of his next eight passes for 78 yards, including several big throws to move the Jaguars into field goal range ahead of a 37-yard field goal make from Riley Patterson, cutting the Titans lead to 14-10.
Jacksonville forced a punt on the next drive and saw Lawrence again lead the offense into Titans' territory. With the running game limited in a big way by the Titans' defensive front, the Jaguars marched downfield via the air before two drops from Zay Jones forced them to settle for a 43-yard field goal from Patterson.
After two well-made field goals, though, Patterson kicked the ensuing kickoff out of bounds to place the Titans near midfield. Luckily, the Jaguars' defense continued to take advantage of some questionable play by the Titans, this time with Shaquille Quarterman making an incredible hustle play to force a Henry fumble, which was recovered by Josh Allen.
Lawrence completed each of his next five passes on the next drive, including a 20-yard touchdown to Zay Jones that was ruled a score after it went through a Titans' defenders hands and landed in Jones' hands. Jones was then able to tightrope the sideline of end zone to keep two feet in and give the Jaguars a 20-14 lead.
Jacksonville seemingly was able to break open the second-half with a giant play as Jamal Agnew took a short opening kickoff back for a touchdown, but linebacker Caleb Johnson was called for holding, taking points off the board.
The Jaguars got the points right back, though, thanks to more heorics from Lawrence. Lawrence picked up several clutch first downs on third-down, including a broken play where he reset himself in the pocket several times before finding Agnew for a big gain down the left sideline.
Lawrence then scored his third touchdown of the day with a one-yard rush, his fourth rushing touchdown of the season. Aiding on the driving was Engram, who 11 passes for 162 yards and two touchdowns.
A first-down penalty on Geoff Swaim -- which was the Titan's first penalty of the day -- set up an Arden Key sack and a forced punt from the Jaguars' defense, who was suddenly playing with energy for the first time in weeks.
Lawrence then kept his own momentum on the next drive, continuing his and Engram's career game with a 21-yard touchdown pass to Engram in the corner of the end-zone to put the Jaguars up 33-14. It was the first game Engram has ever caught two touchdowns in since he was drafted by the New York Giants.
On top of Jacksonville's offensive success, the defense made sure to play complimentary football. This included four sacks, with Foley Fatukasi recording his first sack as a Jaguar and Josh Allen recording his first sack in nearly two months.
The Titans narrowed Jacksonville's lead to 36-22 after 26 unanswered points from the Jaguars, in large part due to some clutch catches from Tannehill's wideouts and a two-yard touchdown to Nick Westbrook-Ikhine.
But a 21-yard gain from Chris Manhertz set up a big fresh set of downs for the Jaguars on the next drive, allowing them to take several minutes off the clock before having to punt.
After the Titans turned it over on downs, all it took was a Lawrence kneeldown and wave goodbye to the Nashville crowd to secure the biggest win of the Pederson era.
Stats of the Game (12/11/22 @ the Titans) Via: @theryanmichael
Trevor Lawrence finished the game 30 of 42 (71.4%) for 368 yards (8.8 YPA), 3 touchdown passes, 1 touchdown run, 121.9 passer rating, 0 interceptions and 0 sacks.
Lawrence notched his 8th career win—with 7 of those wins coming against opposing quarterbacks drafted in the first round (12/11/22 vs. Ryan Tannehill, 11/27/22 vs. Lamar Jackson, 9/25/22 vs. Justin Herbert, 9/18/22 vs. Matt Ryan, 1/9/22 vs. Carson Wentz, 11/7/21 vs. Josh Allen and 10/17/21 vs. Tua Tagovailoa).
Lawrence set career-highs in passing yards (368) and total touchdowns (4).
Lawrence’s 121.9 passer rating was his 8th game of 105.0+ over his last 14 games.
With 30 completions and 368 passing yards, Lawrence (303—3,202) eclipsed 300 completions and 3,000 passing yards in a season for the second time in his 2-year NFL career.
With 0 interceptions, Lawrence recorded the 18th game of his NFL career without an interception.
Evan Engram led the team and set career-highs in receptions (11) receiving yards (162) and touchdown receptions (2).
With 32 total yards, Travis Etienne (1,028) eclipsed 1,000 for the 2022 season.
The Jaguars defense forced 4 turnovers.
Foyesade Oluokun led the NFL with 92 solo tackles before the 10 he notched today. That brings his 2022 total to 102, matching his career-high from 2021.
