:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/38532430/455446344.0.jpg)
Last week I wrote that everything went right, then everything went wrong. On this Sunday, everything went wrong and never got better, as the Jaguars were thoroughly outclassed by Washington in a 41-10 loss that was never close.
The offensive line was bad, Chad Henne was bad, the receivers weren't open and the defense couldn't stop anything. Even with a 63-yard touchdown for Marcedes Lewis and a 54-yard bomb to Allen Robinson, the Jaguars still only managed 148 yards of total offense. That's 31 yards that didn't come via those two plays. Again, they played 60 minutes of football, accomplishing two big plays and 31 yards otherwise.
Meanwhile, even with the early losses of the two biggest stars on the team, Robert Griffin III and Desean Jackson, Washington rolled on offense, as Kirk Cousins shredded the Jacksonville defense for 250 yards through the air and two touchdowns. They didn't have trouble running the ball either, as Alfred Morris racked up 85 yards on the ground and two touchdowns against a defense that was on the field far too often.
It's honestly hard to find any positives from a game as bad as this, but hey, I don't know, I guess it's better than baseball season, I think?
Three things we learned
1. The Jaguars coaches are stubborn: There were plenty of opportunities to give Blake Bortles a chance to spark the offense. When the Jaguars had just one yard of offense in the second quarter, when Washington sacked Chad Henne for the eighth time on Sunday, when a early fourth quarter touchdown extended the lead to 24 points. But Bortles sat. He remained on the sideline with the CBS camera zoomed in on his face. Gus Bradley and the Jaguars said that it would be a redshirt year for Bortles, evidently there was nothing that Henne could've done in Week 2 to dissuade that.
2. The secondary is lost: The Jaguars secondary was full of rookies and newcomers last season, and there were growing pains, as a result. So why does it seem like the same group of players in the secondary look even more lost this year than they did last year? Johnathan Cyprien's absence was notable in Week 1, but is the second-year player really the glue that keeps the team from egregious miscommunications that have seemed to happen nonstop in the last six quarters?
3. The offensive line was bad, but not THAT bad: Ten sacks allowed is the most in franchise history, but was the offensive line's performance really THAT bad? No, not really. Was it good? No, not even close. However, better quarterback play certainly would've resulted in fewer sacks, as Henne sacked himself on multiple occasions. It certainly wasn't all Henne's fault, but boy he's not helping. At all.