Jaguars 2023 scheduled a reward of 2022 heroics

The Jacksonville Jaguars 2023 schedule, as well as the entire NFL schedule, dropped on Thursday evening. The Jaguars ended up with at least three prime time games on their 2023 season, which if I am being brutally honest, was a surprise for me. If we’re being honest, the Jaguars just don’t pull a lot of eyes and even the last time when the Jaguars had a deep playoff run in 2017, they didn’t get this much pull for prime time games the next season.

Part of that is probably because most of the league thought the Jaguars were fugazi, however this time it appears that the NFL thinks the Jaguars are for real. The Jaguars return a large portion of their 2022 roster and they have a real franchise quarterback in Trevor Lawrence now at the helm.

In all likelihood however, the Jaguars slate of games in 2023 is in large part due to their heroics in 2022. I enjoyed the Jaguars “scripted season” schedule release video, but what it really hit home is the fact that a lot of the Jaguars games in 2022 seemed straight out of a movie.

The season started with a gut wrenching loss, followed up by two performances where the team just bulldozed their competition, followed up by a streak of frustrating losses and then the crazy string of games against the Baltimore Ravens, the passing of the torch against the Tennessee Titans, the overtime heroics against the Dallas Cowboys, the late game craziness to win the division and the the absolutely insane comeback win against the Los Angeles Chargers.

The Jaguars were the “Cardiac Cats” of old in 2022 and clearly the NFL sees more of that in the Jaguars for the 2023 season, giving the Jaguars the gamut of prime time games on their schedule.

Outside of the prime time games in 2023, there is the big elephant in the room of London. I’m not going to get into the whole run around with London again, as J.P. Acosta covered it well and I’ve covered it ad nauseum in the past on Big Cat Country, but it’s still a thing the Jaguars have to deal with.

The Jaguars are in London for back-to-back games in 2023, which... I don’t think is advantageous as people think. The Jaguars as an organization do have the history of making the way to London, so from that aspect alone it’s a huge advantage, as the team knows the ins and outs of how to effectively run the process of travelling across the Atlantic Ocean.

In the end, it’s really good schedule for the Jaguars and it’s an indication that they have the league’s “respect” so-to-speak with their slew of prime time games in 2023. It’s nice to finally be over that hill as a fan.

Speaking of over the hill, can we talk about how going to home prime time games is exhausting? Anyone? Just me?