Leonard Fournette: 2017 Jaguars Team 'Still Would Have Been Together' If They Beat Patriots
One of the biggest "What If" moments in Jacksonville Jaguars' history will always be the 2017 AFC Championship Game.
After an upset of the Pittsburgh Steelers in the AFC Divisional Round, the Jaguars seemingly had the New England Patriots and Tom Brady on the ropes with a chance for the Super Bowl on the line when one of the most controversial plays in franchise history occurred: the Myles Jack Wasn't Down play.
With 13:53 left in the fourth quarter and Jacksonville leading New England 20-10, the Patriots pulled out a trick play to try to create some offense. Tom Brady threw a pass to wide receiver Danny Amendola behind the line of scrimmage, and Amendola then heaved the ball to the other sideline to set up a screen for running back Dion Lewis.
Lewis caught the pass and had blockers in front of him. It looked like it was about to be a major gain and momentum shift for the Patriots until Jack sprinted to the ball, tackled Lewis from behind, and forced and recovered a fumble.
Jack got up to run with the ball. With few Patriots in front of him and a legion of Jaguars ready to pave his way, he could have walked into the end zone and made the score 27-10.
Instead, Jack was ruled down by officials and the whistle was prematurely blown as he began to run. The Jaguars got the turnover, but the potential game-changing touchdown was impossible to score due to the down ruling.
Jacksonville then went three-and-out on the following offensive possession, and the Patriots scored on an eight-play, 85-yard touchdown drive when they got the ball back. Momentum went to New England and it never left again.
New England would score once more with a little over two minutes left, making the score 24-20 in the Patriots' favor. The Jaguars would lose in heartbreaking fashion, and the play in which Jack was ruled down has lived in the minds of the team's players, coaches, executives, and fans ever since.
For former Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette, the loss to the Patriots changed the entire trajectory of the team. If the Jaguars had won -- and if Jack was ruled down -- would the Jaguars' core of Fournette, Jack, Jalen Ramsey, Yannick Ngakoue, and others have stuck around longer instead of falling apart quickly over the next two seasons?
"Myles Jack was not down. That's the famous quote we always say. He was not down. But man, it just brings back so much, so many memories. I know for a fact if we would have won that game, that franchise team still would have been together," Fournette said this week on Good Morning Football.
"You never know what would have happened and how many we could have won, you know. We were still young at the time," Fournette said.
"We had a lot of vets, Calais, Malik, Church, a lot of guys on that team. But you never would have knew man. You know, this just brings back memories right here man. My first year, you know, just making it there, beating those teams in the playoffs. It felt great. So just seeing this, it just hurt."
The 2017 Jaguars felt like a team of destiny in the moment, but the moment quickly ended and the team broke up. Now, the Jaguars are being led by a different cast of characters, leaving 2017 as one giant, glaring What If.
