Why did the Jaguars kick a field goal on second down?

The Jacksonville Jaguars had a bizarre sequence at the end of the game in Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams. Late in the game while down 27-17, the team moved within field goal range on a bunch of short passes to Chris Ivory and on 2nd-and-8, head coach Doug Marrone decided to kick a field goal.

This left a lot of fans confused as to what in the world he was thinking.

In a vacuum, Marrone’s logic makes perfect sense. If you hit the field goal you will be down a touchdown with enough time to kick an on-side kick and take some shots into the endzone to possibly tie the game and send it into overtime.

The problem is the game doesn’t occur in a vacuum and you have to take the context of the game into consideration when making decisions. Jason Myers missed a long field goal earlier, plus he missed one that was saved by a penalty. Did you really have any confidence he would hit a 50 plus yard field goal with the pressure on?

Plus, even if he hits it, you have to recover an onside kick and hope that Blake Bortles can heave one up into the endzone close enough for a receiver to make a play.

I get why Marrone did it and in a vacuum it makes sense, but in the context of the game it was truly bizarre.