Jarrod Wilson Details Long Packers' Touchdown, Referee Cameo

The changing point in Sunday's game was a 78-yard Aaron Rodgers bomb downfield, which featured a referee serving as a pick of sorts for the Packers receiver. Jaguars FS Jarrod Wilson described what he saw on the play following the game.

The Referee Reception. The Umpire Undoing. The Back Judge Bluster.

Whatever you want to call it, the 78-yard touchdown the Jacksonville Jaguars allowed to Aaron Rodgers and Marquez Valdes-Scantling on the first play of the second quarter in Sunday's 24-20 loss was a major momentum shift -- a shift that saw a striped official make an appearance in the play. 

"Then we gave up a long play, the 78-yard touchdown. That was tough, we just got beat. Just ran by us in three-deep," Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said after the game.

The play was relatively simple: Valdes-Scantling ran a vertical route and won outside leverage against Sidney Jones, giving Aaron Rodgers a window to complete the deep pass in. The receiver then ran at an angle toward the middle of the field instead of straight to the end zone. 

At first, the move to run to the end zone at an angle instead of a straight line looked curious. Then as Jaguars free safety Jarrod Wilson closed in on the tackle attempt around the 15-yard line, Valdes-Scantling made his gamble pay off. An official was between him and Wilson, leading to the receiver cutting behind the referee and Wilson, creating a roadblock and allowing him to score as the Packers took a 7-3 lead.

Aaron Rodgers with the 78-yard DIME for the TD 😯

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/pEUGQb6X6u

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) November 15, 2020

“Yeah, I was hoping to get him down. He kind of did the right move, kind of like just run directly at the ref while he was cutting back and I kind of just tripped up and ran over the ref," Wilson said following Sunday's loss, Jacksonville's eighth loss in a row. 

But, as Wilson noted, the Jaguars can't use the referee's placement on the field as an excuse. It was going to be a giant gain regardless of the collision at the 15-yard line, the kind of explosive plays the 1-8 Jaguars can not continue to allow on defense. 

"But [we] still just have to stop them at the beginning of the play, that’s kind of just too far down field really. My job is to get him down but obviously we don’t even want the explosive [play] to begin with," Wilson said. 

Take away the 78-yard bomb and the Jaguars would have held Rodgers to 247 yards on 23/33 passing. Allowing a yards per attempt of nearly 7.5 is still not a good mark for the Jaguars, but it does show that the 78-yard play was by far the biggest moment of Sunday's game.

"But I thought overall, it was good to see the defense looking like they were having some fun out there. I know we gave up plays. I understand that, but I thought they were playing physical, you know what I’m saying," Marrone said. 

"So I think, at the end of the day, we got the game and then we just couldn’t make the plays that were out there, that we had an opportunity to make to win the game. That’s why we lost. "