After beating the Colts in Week 1, the Jaguars have dropped two straight games at home to the Chiefs and Texans.
Jacksonville had high expectations entering the season, in large part because of the team’s playoff comeback against the Chargers and performance in the divisional round against the Chiefs. Head coach Doug Pederson said following Sunday’s loss that the team may be trying too hard to live up to the preseason hype.
“I think that’s real. I do. I think that’s real,” Pederson said in his press conference. “I’ve been around this game too long to know that you can’t live in the past or you’re going to fail in the future. We just got to focus one day at a time. We got to get better each day and can’t worry about next week or the week after. We can’t worry about the London trip coming up. We just got to focus in on the week at hand.
“That part of it starts with me, in making sure that the guys are hearing that message loud and clear from me. We’ll make sure that they get that message.”
The Jaguars have scored just 28 points combined in the last two weeks and went scoreless in the first half on Sunday. The team also has committed multiple turnovers in two of its three games.
Why did Jacksonville get off to another slow start
“I wish I had a crystal ball, honestly. That would probably answer a lot of questions,” Pederson said. “But I thought the guys were more focused this week. I thought that the Kansas City game, whether we pressed a little bit in that game and made too many errors in that game to bounce back, have the type of week that we did.
“But again, the guys are they’re doing and saying all the right things. It’s just really hard to put a finger on it. Coaches need to coach, players need to play, leaders need to lead. That part of it starts with me. We’ve got ourselves in a little bit of a pickle here and we got to work it out.”
The Jaguars are headed to London for a two-week stretch of games. They’ll play the Falcons on Sunday and the Bills in Week 5 across the pond.
