Gene Frenette: Chiefs deliver gut punch, but Jaguars won’t be going away any time soon

Jacksonville Jaguars running back JaMycal Hasty (22) is hit by Kansas City Chiefs cornerback L’Jarius Sneed (38) during the first half of an NFL divisional round playoff football game, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

KANSAS CITY – In every nook and cranny of the Arrowhead Stadium visitors’ locker room, the pain emitting over a transformative Jaguars season coming to an end made any consoling gesture feel hollow.

Trevor Lawrence admitted he wasn’t emotionally ready to balance the team’s scintillating late-season turnaround with the Kansas City Chiefs sending them to an NFL playoff exit.

Near his locker, tight end Evan Engram struggled to hold his emotions in check, repeatedly sniffling as he tried answering various questions about what just happened and his impending free agency.

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Poor Jamal Agnew. The Jaguars’ splendid return man, and also one of the most stand-up guys on a team full of them, couldn’t stop beating himself up over a late-game fumble.

Receiver Zay Jones probably encapsulated the Jaguars’ mood best, saying: “It’s probably going to take a couple weeks to do all the reflecting. It still doesn’t feel real that it’s all over.”

Sure, the Jaguars can take immense pride in going from a seemingly dead-end season to coming within one win of reaching the AFC Championship game.

But the bitter disappointment of falling 27-20 to the Chiefs — coming agonizingly close to erasing another double-digit deficit and knocking off the AFC’s top seed — remains a wound too big to heal overnight.

Players were banking on the unexpected postseason ride lasting a little longer, but Agnew’s fumble and a Lawrence interception in the final six minutes brought their storybook year to a profoundly gut-punching conclusion.

Just like that, a six-game winning streak, the hope of maybe this upstart team reaching the franchise’s first Super Bowl, and a season to be remembered in “Duuuval” decades from now was over.

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“We are all hurting because of the loss, but we are all hurting because it is the final game of this year,” said head coach Doug Pederson. “That is the hard thing. Like I told the guys, ‘these are the games we are going to learn from and be better because of [them].’

“I told them plan on every year us being in these meaningful games at the end of the season. We want to be one of the four, five, or six teams in the AFC [mix] every year.”

Losing the ball, losing the season 

This had the makings of an epic showdown, seeing which young gunslinger between presumptive league MVP Patrick Mahomes and Lawrence would deliver the game-winning highlight at the finish line.

Instead, the Jaguars’ inability to take care of the ball ended up sealing a fifth consecutive AFC Championship game appearance for the Chiefs.

A week after cashing in the equivalent of a playoff Lotto ticket, by overcoming a minus-five turnover margin and a 27-point deficit against the Los Angeles Chargers, it was the Jaguars who flinched at closing time.

On the verge of cutting the Chiefs’ lead to 27-24 near the five-minute mark, with a first-and-goal at the KC 9, a Lawrence pass to Agnew in the right flat was going to gain five or six yards before cornerback L’Jarius Sneed likely tackled him.

Unfortunately, Agnew didn’t immediately bring the ball into his body, instead keeping it a bit stretched out. When he tried to secure the ball, it came out before Sneed made any real contact and linebacker Nick Bolton recovered at the Chiefs’ 3.

“It’s definitely tough to think of anything else other than that fumble, especially in a critical moment like that,” Agnew said. “We’re trying to come back, we’re driving the ball pretty well, there’s a lot of time left on the clock. I just got to hold on to the ball. There’s no excuse for it.

“It wasn’t anything they did. It was just me not tucking the ball as soon as I caught it.”

Bleak as things appeared, the Jaguars’ defense got off the field quickly and they had the ball at midfield, still trailing 27-17. That’s when Lawrence, pressured with a blitzing safety coming right at him up the middle, underthrew a ball for Jones that was picked off by Jaylen Watson.

By the time the Jaguars regained possession, there was only 1:04 remaining. A Riley Patterson field goal with 25 seconds left wasn’t enough as the ensuing onside kick failed.

The finish reminded Pederson of the 0-for-October stretch when the Jaguars lost five consecutive games by one score: a team long on desire and a little short on execution in big moments.

“I think they understand how good they can be,” said Pederson. “Some of the same ugly mistakes that showed up in this game were the things that showed up earlier in the season. Those are things we have to move on from. In order to win against great football teams like the Chiefs are, you can’t make those mistakes.”

“Mad as hell” 

As impactful as the Agnew fumble and Lawrence interception were in dooming the Jaguars, they were hardly the team’s only mishaps.

Christian Kirk had a perfectly-thrown deep ball by Lawrence go right out of his hands, nullifying a 50-yard gain to the Chiefs’ 14 in the second quarter. That drive ended in a field goal instead of a touchdown.

On the previous possession, a promising march to the KC 25 was derailed by a tripping penalty on Jaguars’ left tackle Walter Little, which eventually forced a punt after Lawrence got sacked by Frank Clark.

The defense had issues of its own. None greater than when Mahomes was forced to the sideline by an injured right ankle, forcing head coach Andy Reid to replace him with former Jaguar Chad Henne midway through the second quarter.

“When we saw Pat [Mahomes] go out of the game, we thought it was a good opportunity to kind of take advantage of Henne,” said safety Rayshawn Jenkins.

Just the opposite happened. Even with the Chiefs pinned back at their own 2 by Logan Cooke’s deft punting touch, the Jaguars’ defense blinked.

A few short Henne passes, a roughing-the-passer penalty on Arden Key, four Isiah Pacheco runs for 57 yards and a 1-yard scoring toss to tight end Travis Kelce put KC in the end zone.

“That was kind of a turning point, a momentum swing for the game,” said Pederson. “We had them at the 2-yard line and let them off the hook a little bit.”

Henne only got in there for 13 plays, including a kneel-down to end the half, but the damage done by a rusty, 37-year-old backup proved vital in the end.

“We were mad as hell that they drove 98 yards on us with a backup quarterback,” said outside linebacker Josh Allen.

Angry as they might have been, the Jaguars never got even after Henne’s TD drive put the Chiefs up 17-7.

Two hours later, Lawrence found himself pausing in the tunnel to the locker room to greet teammates, coaches and staff members with hand slaps and hugs. It seemed like a partial appreciation for a memorable season, but also to remember the painful exit as fuel for a promising future.

“You work so hard to get here, nobody thought we’d be here – we had our shot and that’s what hurts,” said Lawrence. “We’ll be back, I’m confident in that. This is more the beginning than it is the end of something. This is just getting started for us, we got a taste of it.

“Guys are already hungry to get this opportunity again, it doesn’t take away from the sting of (it).”

Jaguars primed for sustained winning 

Tough as it was to stomach the season being over, the Jaguars might be in a better place than any time in history.

Yes, including when those AFC Championship game appearances in 1996, ‘99 and 2017 also ended in miserable, soul-crushing losses.

That’s because the Jaguars have a franchise quarterback for a decade or longer in Lawrence, the perfect mentor for him in Pederson, and the core of a team returning already galvanized by connective relationships.

“No one thought we should be here, and we just kept believing,” Lawrence said. “It was really cool to be a part of, it was special. It’s just the beginning. This year was huge, obviously, for this organization, for our city and for our franchise moving forward.

“It sets the bar of who we’re going to be and what we’re going to do moving forward. That’s the mindset, and we won’t settle for less than that. We got a taste of it, but there’s more left and we all feel that.”

So might the rest of the AFC South, where the Tennessee Titans, Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans are currently or soon will be in the market for a franchise-changing quarterback like Trevor

Unless they find one quickly, the Jaguars and Lawrence have a real chance to dominate the division the way Peyton Manning and the Colts did from 2002-10. That run of excellence produced seven AFC South titles, two more playoff entries as a wild card, one Super Bowl crown and two AFC Championships.

Now certainly none of that is a guarantee. But given Lawrence’s age (23) and more time in the Pederson system, a lot points to the Jaguars being an AFC South favorite next year, the year after that, and the year after that.

“We are going to be in this position for many years to come,” said Kirk. “We have built something special here with the guys in this locker room.”

That sentiment has traveled well beyond the TIAA Bank Field building. A team that was once 2-6, 3-7 and 4-8, written off as an AFC South non-factor, has changed the national narrative from perennial loser to a winning franchise built to last.

You don’t erase deficits of 17 (Las Vegas), 17 (Dallas), 10 (Tennessee), 27 (Chargers) and 9 in the fourth quarter (Baltimore), then come into Arrowhead and push a slight Super Bowl favorite like the Jaguars did, without having legitimate cachet.

As Lawrence succinctly put it: “This won’t be the last you guys hear from us, we’re going to be back.”

With a vengeance, too.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540

Rest of column here

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars’ season may be over, but Trevor-Doug combo holds future promise