New England gained more yards than Jacksonville on Sunday and lost by twenty-nine points.
Not more yards per play, or more yards in some segment of the game you have to go looking for. More yards. Three hundred and seventeen to three hundred and fifteen.
It is also the second week running that Jacksonville has been outgained. At Denver they were outgained 392 to 268 and lost by seven, which is the arithmetic working the way it usually does. On Sunday they were outgained by two and won by twenty-nine, which is not.
So this is a 2-1 team that has not moved the ball better than its opponent in a fortnight, and whose record over that stretch has less to do with how it played than with what the other side handed over. Cincinnati on Sunday is where that stops being free.
Where twenty-nine points came from
Three giveaways. Two interceptions of Drake Maye, one of them Travis Hunter’s first career interception, and a Maye fumble that Hamilton fell on.
One of those set up a scoring drive that began at the New England 5 and lasted four seconds. Rodriguez ran it in. Four seconds is not an offensive possession, it is a formality performed on a field five yards long, and it counts the same as the eight minutes and forty-two seconds Jacksonville spent on the drive that ended with Washington’s touchdown.
That 8:42 was the longest drive of the afternoon by either team. The next longest was 5:29. So the Jaguars produced exactly one sustained scoring drive all day, and scored five times.
The quarterback lines say it too
Lawrence went 19 of 29 for 182 with three touchdowns and an interception. Maye went 14 of 25 for 199 with none and two.
The losing quarterback threw for seventeen more yards than the winning one, and the difference between their afternoons was not accuracy or arm or reading a defence. It was who gave the ball away.
Take the three turnovers out and this is a close, ugly football game between two teams that could not run: Tuten carried fifteen times for 73 yards and that led everybody on the field.
What the penalty and possession columns rule out
The usual explanations are not available here.
New England was flagged nine times to Jacksonville’s seven, for 68 yards to 56. So the loser was the more penalised team, by two flags and twelve yards, and still outgained the winner.
Possession runs the other way and makes it worse. Jacksonville held the ball 31 minutes and 53 seconds to New England’s 28:07, three minutes and forty-six seconds longer, and still finished two yards short. New England moved the ball better in less time, took more flags doing it, and lost by twenty-nine.
A team beaten like that has not been beaten on anything a coach can drill.
Three weeks, three different arguments
Week 1 against Cleveland was the real thing: 34-10 on 360 yards, Lawrence 18 of 23 for 245 with four touchdown passes to four different men.
Week 2 at Denver was the reverse of Sunday. Jacksonville was outgained 392 to 268 and led 13-6 going into the fourth anyway, and when Denver stopped obliging there was nothing left: fourteen unanswered, and Jacksonville did not score in the quarter.
Week 3 is the same starting position and the opposite ending. Outgained again, and this time the other quarterback threw it to the wrong team twice and put it on the ground once.
Being outgained twice running is the constant. Losing by seven and winning by twenty-nine are what happened on top of it. That is not a criticism of a 35-6 afternoon, which nobody in October apologises for. It is a question about what the 2-1 is evidence of.
Sunday
Turnovers are the least repeatable thing in professional football. Nobody schemes three of them and nobody is owed them the following week.
At Cincinnati, 1 p.m., Paycor Stadium, on CBS47 and Paramount+, with the radio call on 1010XL, 92.5 FM and 99.9 FM.
If the Bengals hand over three, none of the above matters. If they hand over none, we find out what 315 yards buys.
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