Jaguars Favored in Zero 2020 Games in Pre-Draft Spreads
It isn't hard to look around oddsmakers and NFL analysts and find those who are low on the Jacksonville Jaguars' chances to field a winning football team in 2020.
From questions at quarterback, to the return of a general manager and head coach with career losing records, to overhauling a once-great roster by shipping veterans off for day three draft picks, most believe the Jaguars are closer to contending for the No. 1 overall pick as opposed to contending for the playoffs.
But it may be hard to find a projection that is as low on the Jaguars' 2020 squad as the NFL spreads released by BetOnline earlier this week. In a list of spreads of each and every NFL game next season, BetOnline projected the Jaguars to be the underdogs in all 16 games they play next season.
While this is a staggering projection any which way you look at it, it is made even more eye-popping by the fact the Jaguars are the only team BetOnline has projected to be favored in zero games next season.
Why so low on Jacksonville next year? Losing pieces such as Calais Campbell and A.J. Bouye to offseason trades likely play a big part, as does the impending trade of defensive end Yannick Ngakoue, whenever that does actually happen. But even with that factored in, the Jaguars are underdogs to several teams which had worse 2019 seasons than them.
The Jaguars play both the Detroit Lions, who pick No. 3 overall in this year's draft, and Miami Dolphins, who pick No. 5 overall, at home in Jacksonville (pending those two games aren't sent to London for the international series), but the Jaguars are underdogs in each of those games. Despite each of those teams have worse records in 2019 than the Jaguars did, the Jaguars are one-point underdogs at home versus both teams.
In divisional games, the Jaguars are 10.5-point underdogs at the Colts and six-point underdogs vs. the Colts at home. Jacksonville is 8.5-point underdogs at the Texans, while being three-point underdogs at home vs. Houston. Meanwhile, the Jaguars are 10-point underdogs at the Titans and five-point underdogs vs. Tennessee in Jacksonville.
The two teams Jacksonville is underdogs against by the largest margins? Jacksonville is 15.5-point underdogs vs. the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore, while also being 11-point underdogs at Green Bay and Minnesota.
How does this all stack up vs. the rest of the AFC South? BetOnline has the Texans favored in six games (with two pick'ems), and the Titans and Colts are favored in 10.
The only other teams who are close to being favored in zero games by BetOnline are the New York Giants, the Cincinnati Bengals, and the Carolina Panthers, putting the Jaguars in bad company.
Will the Jaguars actually go 0-16 in 2020? Anything could happen, but the Jaguars won six games in 2019 despite a severely flawed roster and an abundance of off-field issues and questions about the future of the coaching staff. The Jaguars going winless in 2020, even with their issues, would be rather shocking.
Even so, the Jaguars are not high on most radars entering next season. This could change with 12 draft picks in next week's draft, including two picks in the top-20, but chances are projections will remain gloomy for the Jaguars.
