NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Josh Allen said the worst collapse in franchise history happened because everyone was waiting around for that one particular moment to happen. Now they have to spend the next seven months waiting for their next chance.
The Jaguars won five in a row to close the 2022 regular season and win the AFC South. This season they stumbled to a 1-5 finish -- capped by Sunday's 28-20 loss to the Tennessee Titans at Nissan Stadium -- and missed the playoffs after an 8-3 start gave them a 98% chance to make the postseason.
"I feel like last year we had a spark and we lit [it] and we just followed that and rode that wave," Allen said. "And then this year we were looking forward too much hoping that it was going to come and it never came.
"... We've got the guys. We've got the talent. We've got the trust. We've got the locker room. We've got the guys that can go out there and put their bodies on the line for each other. But when it's time to put on that fire, we've got to turn it up a little notch."
The problem, head coach Doug Pederson said, is that while they were waiting for that spark they were playing sloppy football. During losses to Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore and Tampa the Jaguars turned the ball over 12 times and during their 1-5 finish they converted only 52.4% of their red zone drives into touchdowns. Plus too many missed tackles, penalties, and four missed field goals, he said.
As a result, instead of preparing to play Cleveland in a wild-card game at EverBank Field next weekend they're staring at an offseason full of questions.
"I'm frustrated, I'm disappointed, I'm mad [and] angry [at the way the season ended]," Pederson said. "My heart hurts for the players, coaches involved. They've worked their tails off. But today's game was sort of our season in a nutshell. The mistakes, the penalties, the turnovers, missed tackles, those are all the things that hurt us down the stretch."
One of the big questions will be about quarterback Trevor Lawrence, who returned to the field on Sunday after missing last week's game against Carolina with a sprained right AC joint. Lawrence threw for 280 yards and two touchdowns against the Titans, but he also threw two interceptions.
That was the fourth time in his last eight games that Lawrence has thrown multiple interceptions (he had just seven multiple-interception games in his first 42). He now has 15 games with multiple turnovers since entering the NFL in 2021, which is the most of any player over that span, per ESPN Stats & Information.
"I feel like I didn't do everything that I could have done today to help us win and didn't feel like I played my best," Lawrence said. "So it hurts, but at the end of the day, that's what you put on the field."
Lawrence was dealing with knee, ankle and shoulder injuries as well as a concussion. Receiver Christian Kirk missed the final five games with a core muscle injury. Receiver Zay Jones dealt with knee and hamstring injuries all season. Left tackle Cam Robinson missed the first four games of the season with a PED suspension and four more late in the season because of a knee injury.
Safety Andre Cisco and cornerback Tyson Campbell also missed games with hamstring, shoulder and quad injuries.
None of which, Lawrence said, is an excuse for what the Jaguars put on the field since a victory in Houston on Nov. 6. Win one of those four games they lost and Sunday's game against the Titans may have been meaningless -- which is why Sunday's abrupt end to the season is so devastating, he said.
"For some reason we just didn't play as good as a team as the season went on," Lawrence said. "When we needed to be our best, we weren't. And last year was the opposite. When we needed to be our best and absolutely had to have it, we were, and we found a way to win up until the divisional [playoff loss in Kansas City]. You just have to bring that every week and there was a disconnect somewhere and obviously we weren't able to put that on the field in the back half of the season like we needed to to give our ourselves a chance to make the playoffs and go on a run."
Even though the Jaguars (9-8) failed to make the playoffs, they finished with a winning record for the second consecutive season for the first time since 2004-05. That's at least some progress that the franchise hasn't shown in nearly two decades. But they had the chance to win back-to-back division titles for just the second time in franchise history and make the playoffs in back-to-back seasons for the first time since they made four in a row from 1996-99, and they failed -- and Pederson took ultimate responsibility for the collapse.
"It's disappointing the way we finished our season," he said. "Obviously, it's definitely not good enough. Things start with me, and I got to make sure that I'm holding myself accountable and doing all I can to help our football team win, on and off the football field. But it's just not good enough."