Jaguars were always going to lose to the Patriots, but not like that

The Jacksonville Jaguars got trounced by the New England Patriots to the tune of 51-17 on Sunday, which was much uglier than the score, if you can believe that.

The Jaguars were always going to lose this football game, even the biggest fan knew in their heart of hearts they had no chance to win this game. The Patriots are among the NFL elite and that's what makes Sunday's loss so jarring.

The Jaguars shouldn't still be losing like that at this point in the "rebuild", which is "built" as everyone likes to mockingly quote.

Sure, the Jaguars had a ton of injuries and suffered even more during the game but... the Patriots didn't punt. The Jaguars literally did not stop them on a single drive. Every drive the Patriots had until they kneeled the ball at the end of the game, they scored. Yeah, Sen'Derrick Marks isn't playing. Yeah, Dante Fowler and Andre Branch are out. Yeah, Dwayne Gratz, Demetrius McCary and Johnathan Cyprien are out. Sure Josh Evans and Davon House got hurt in the game...

But you have to stop them at least one time. Just once.

NE 51-10 -- most points allowed #Jaguars history. Enough said.

— Ryan O'Halloran (@ryanohalloran) September 27, 2015

On offense, the team looked like a team who knew they'd have to try to score nearly every drive to even stay competitive. I thought overall, Blake Bortles was OK. He wasn't awful, but he wasn't good. His interception was really bad, but a least it came from trying to attack down the field rather than throwing a pre-determined 5-yard out.

Still, in that situation you need to "attack smart" and try to get some points before halftime. Going in 13-10/6 is a hell of a lot better than going in 20-3.

There are some issues on offense that we can get into in another post, but there are some big issues there. Hopefully Julius Thomas and Marqise Lee can play against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, else they will continue to be there.

But, back to my main issue. I knew the Jaguars were going to lose. I was hoping it would be something like 41-24 or something. Something like when they went to Denver back in 2013 and kept it close with the Broncos, but ultimately just didn't have enough. You're still playing the NFL elite and I didn't expect the Jaguars to be ready to go blow-for-blow with them yet, but I also didn't expect them to go out there like Bo Dallas against Brock Lesnar.

That's unacceptable and you shouldn't be okay with it. There's no real sunshine you can pump out of this loss, because at this point it shouldn't be happening.

It's Year 3.

Sunday was Year 1 stuff.