The story of the Jaguars’ 2023 season was a second-half collapse that kept the team out of the playoffs and that was the same story in Sunday’s opener against the Dolphins.
Jacksonville led the Dolphins 17-7 at halftime, but they didn’t score a point in the second half and left Miami as 20-17 losers after Jason Sanders hit a field goal as time expired. The Jaguars only picked up six first downs in the second half with five of them coming on one drive.
That drive ended with Dolphins safety Jevon Holland punching the ball out of running back Travis Etienne’s hands before Etienne could get into the end zone. Tyreek Hill scored an 80-yard touchdown on the next play, but quarterback Trevor Lawrence said “we just kind of gave it away” rather than place the blame on Etienne for his turnover.
“We preach taking care of the ball, not doing it, but I’ve been in that same position, and that’s what I told Travis,” Lawrence said, via Gene Frenette of the Florida Times-Union. “I’ve done it before, too. So no one is pointing the fingers. We still had plenty of time in the game, and we have to be able to handle the adversity and go score in the next series, and that’s the only good drive we had the whole half. It’s on all of us when something like that does happen. We’ve got to gather around and make the next play, and we didn’t do that.”
Etienne’s fumble was painful, but Lawrence is correct to point out that the Jaguars had plenty of other chances to put the Dolphins away. They couldn’t do it and that makes for some unhappy reminders of how things played out in Jacksonville last year.