On Friday, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport reported the Jacksonville Jaguars had been one loss away from firing head coach Doug Pederson. This was not stunning. After a formidable 2022 debut, Pederson spiraled into the identical pit of despair over which the Jaguars declare dominion.
His one probability to avoid wasting his job, seemingly, got here all the way down to a recreation towards the NFC’s finest workforce on the street. As a 13.5-point underdog. With Mac Jones as his beginning quarterback.
Issues went roughly as anticipated, although Jones’s offense wasn’t the largest downside in Jacksonville’s Week 11 52-6 implosion towards the Detroit Lions. As a substitute, that honor goes to a protection that gave up 645 yards of complete offense.
Brock on 🤘#JAXvsDET | 📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/9M4hdMMovV
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 17, 2024
That was simply one in all seven touchdowns Detroit scored in Week 11. These got here on their first seven drives. Drive quantity eight resulted in a discipline purpose. Drive 9, engineered primarily by Hendon Hooker and Sione Vaki, gained 54 yards in 11 performs earlier than the clock mercifully ran out.
On one hand, this was an uneven matchup between a wildly gifted workforce and an objectively dangerous one. The Jaguars had the league’s worst protection. The Lions had a high six unit able to shredding you on the bottom or by means of the air. With little resistance to both, Detroit head coach Dan Campbell executed a mercy killing on Pederson’s Jacksonville profession by stomping his workforce right into a puddle in each regards.
Waymo on the unfastened to start out the second half 🙌#JAXvsDET | 📺 CBS pic.twitter.com/HV5RLzMadK
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 17, 2024
The Jaguars tried, however not likely. This was a workforce frolicked to dry. They had been challenged by their possession to stand up and save their head coach’s job if they really wished Pederson within the fold. They responded by taking a beating the likes of which hasn’t been seen within the NFL in additional than 4 many years.
The Lions out-gained the Jaguars by 475 yards at present. That is the largest yardage differential in an NFL recreation since 1979.
— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) November 17, 2024
This was a silent vote of no confidence with a deafening impact. It wasn’t the mere end result of a expertise disparity or Jones’s presence behind heart. This can be a workforce that leaned into the skid figuring out the one means out of the ice cave of defeat wherein it’s been trapped is to go deeper into the crevasse and begin over.
Thus, the Doug Pederson period probably ends not with a bang however with the volumeless screech of a black gap set down upon a bustling city. Pederson, ought to he be fired Monday, finishes his Jaguars profession on a 3-14 slide owed partially to accidents to Trevor Lawrence, partially to the drafting and expertise acquisition round him and partially to Pederson’s personal lack of ability to create one thing extra worthwhile than the sum of its components.
It’s a outstanding fall for a coach who’d started his Jacksonville profession with a 17-11 run and one of many best comebacks in NFL playoff historical past. Nevertheless it’s one his gamers quietly signed off on within the midst of a historic loss.
