Chargers at Jaguars
This is one of the more underrated matchups of the week in my opinion. I’m excited to see what happens when one of the hottest teams in football, Jacksonville, faces off against a Chargers team with a penchant for playing in close games. On one hand, the Jaguars have won six of their last seven and Trevor Lawrence has emerged to look like the star QB he was selected to be. On the other hand, Los Angeles is 5-3 this season in games which were decided by three points or fewer, while Jacksonville has only played in one such game all year. This type of close game experience should serve Los Angeles well in the playoffs.
The Chargers are currently slight favorites on the road, but that could change before kickoff with the hype that has been building around the Jaguars. This Jacksonville team has a similar feel to last year’s Bengals, who got hot at the right time while their young, star QB announced himself to the league. Those kinds of narratives don’t have any impact on the football field, but it should make it easier for the public to buy into this team if they make it out of Round 1.
If the Jaguars are going to win, it is likely they will need a big day from Lawrence or Travis Etienne, and possibly both. When these two teams met all the way back in Week 3, Jacksonville cruised to a 38-10 victory with Lawrence playing a very efficient game. The Jags also had a 100-yard rusher that week, but it was James Robinson who was still carrying the load at that point. Heading into the rematch, Etienne figures to see the bulk of the carries and could be in for a big day against a Chargers run defense that allowed the second-most rushing yards to opposing RBs throughout the regular season.
What looked like a rag-tag group of pass catchers to start the season has really come together for Jacksonville. Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, and Evan Engram have all had great stretches at different points this season and don’t give opposing defenses a clear top option to try and take away. The first time these teams met, Kirk and Jones had big games, but that was all the way back in September so I don’t want to read into that too much. In fact, the Chargers have actually been really good at limiting opposing passing attacks over the second half of the season, so I am interested to see what the Jaguars’ game plan is in this contest.
The regular season ended on a bit of a controversial note for the Chargers when HC Brandon Staley chose to play his starters for basically the full game in a meaningless Week 18 matchup. This backfired in the form of a Mike Williams injury and his status for this weekend is now up in the air. It will be a big boost for the team if he is able to play, and his absence would mean a larger role for Josh Palmer and Gerald Everett.
Whether or not Williams plays, the LA offense will run through Keenan Allen and Austin Ekeler. The highest scoring RB in the regular season now gets to take on a Jacksonville defense that has allowed the most catches and third-most receiving yards to opposing RBs on the season. Meanwhile, I don’t think Keenan Allen has gotten enough credit for just how productive he has been since returning from injury. Since Week 11, Allen was the WR4 in half PPR scoring, yet he has actually underperformed expectations according to the PFF Expected Points model and he is the only WR in the top 12 for whom that is true. This is significant because it speaks to just how valuable of a role Allen has had down the stretch, something we should expect to continue into the playoffs.
For as resilient as this Chargers team has been throughout the season, I have become a big believer in what Jacksonville is doing over the past few weeks. They’ve been playing their best football down the stretch and have an experienced coach who has found success in the playoffs. That recipe should make them a tough out which is why I like their chances against a Chargers team that hasn’t quite put it all together this season despite their talented roster.
