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Jacksonville Jaguars

As the Sports Xchange suggested, it was not the most artistic win in the NFL on Sunday and was far from the most convincing triumph. But when you are the Jacksonville Jaguars and you have only tasted victory 12 times in the previous 51 games, your belief and response to that type of talk is "a win is a win."

Sunday's 30-27 victory over the Colts was not only was a win for Jacksonville, but it may have been a job-saving win. Talk behind the scenes and whispers in the locker room last week were that the Jaguars were playing to save head coach Gus Bradley's job. The ideal time to replace a coach during the season is the start of a team's bye week, thus giving the new man nearly two weeks to prepare for his first game.

The Jaguars are off this week in keeping with their request to have their bye week following their annual trip to London. So if Bradley was to be replaced, Monday or Tuesday of this week would have been the ideal time to do so. After all, Jacksonville had dropped its first three games of the season, albeit close defeats to both Green Bay and Baltimore, with a chance to win both games in the final couple minutes.

But on Sunday, it was just the opposite.

What the Jaguars do with the win in the weeks ahead will spell the difference between a successful season or another losing one. With upcoming games against Chicago, Oakland and Tennessee, all of whom appear to be close to the same level as Indianapolis, the Jaguars have a chance to right the ship and get beyond the .500 mark before a six-game stretch against Houston (two games), Denver, Minnesota, Buffalo and Detroit kicks in.

Before the season started, the Jaguars had the mind-set that if they could gain at least a split against their first four tough opponents, it would put them in a position to build momentum and make a strong second-half run. While they came up a game short of that mark, strong performances against both Green Bay and Baltimore lend support that the goal can still be reached.

It won't be an easy task. The Jaguars are young on offense and even younger on defense. In Sunday's game against the Colts, Jacksonville started four rookies on defense, while on offense, six starters are in their third year or less. That certainly bodes well for the future as only a handful of starters are older than 27.

One promising aspect from the London game was the dramatic improvement by young quarterback Blake Bortles.

The young signal-caller had not played well even though his 843 passing yards in the team's first three games might indicate otherwise. The most noticeable difference for Bortles was that he took care of the ball. He had thrown six interceptions and had one lost fumble in the team's first three contests. But on Sunday, Bortles had no turnovers and that enabled the Jaguars to keep their six scoring drives alive.

Bortles was quick to divert the praise to others.

"It was a really good team win," he said. "I felt like offensively it was good to see the run game get going and so some stuff there. I think the guys up front, the offensive line controlled the line of scrimmage and I think that's why we won the game. Allen Hurns (42-yard scoring reception) is an unbelievable player and can make plays and do things like that. I never thought he was going out of bounds (on his TD catch). He's an unbelievably smart player and he knew to stay inbounds to keep the clock running and then obviously he cut back and was able to make some guys miss and score a touchdown."

Bortles finished the game hitting on 19 of his 33 pass attempts, good for 207 yards and a pair of touchdowns to go with his season-best 96.4 QB rating.

Meanwhile, as NFL.com's Matt Harmon noted this week, Allen Robinson is still the target hog of this this offense, garnering just over 30 percent of the team targets including several red zone looks.

But Harmon felt there was a bigger game to be had here. The Colts committed multiple pass interference penalties on Robinson and he misplayed an end zone target.

Harmon went on to note that Allen Hurns still isn't seeing enough volume, accumulating almost all of his production on a long 42-yard catch and run touchdown. Hurns (89 percent) played more snaps than Marqise Lee (71 percent) but they are beginning to cannibalize each other. ...

Another positive. ... The Jaguars had rushed for less than 70 yards in each of their first three games, yet almost doubled that number with a 136-yard effort against the Colts.

The two-headed monster of T.J. Yeldon and Chris Ivory that was expected to be so potent still hasn't kicked in. Yeldon did his share in the game with 71 yards on 14 carries (5.0 per attempt), but Ivory continues to struggle as he only accounted for 29 yards on eight attempts (3.6 yards per carry).

The key to adding to the ground game was the scrambling of Bortles, who finished with 36 yards in seven planned runs or scrambles. Four of his five scrambles went for 6 yards or more. ...

On the injury front. ... The Jaguars have lost Luke Joeckel for at least half the season.

Joeckel has been placed on injured reserve with a knee injury he suffered Sunday. Under the NFL's new rules, the Jaguars can decide in six weeks whether to bring him back after Week 12, or shut him down for the season.

Julius Thomas was declared inactive for the Colts game due to an elbow injury. He should return against the Bears in Week 6. Fellow tight end Marcedes Lewis suffered a hip contusion when he landed awkwardly after catching a pass in the second quarter. His status for Week 6 is unclear.


DEPTH CHART
QBs: Blake Bortles, Chad Henne, Brandon Allen 
RBs: T.J. Yeldon, Chris Ivory, Denard Robinson, Corey Grant, Joe Banyard 
WRs: Allen Robinson, Allen Hurns, Marqise Lee, Rashad Greene, Bryan Walters 
TEs: Julius Thomas, Marcedes Lewis, Ben Koyack, Neal Sterling