AFC Wild Card: Jaguars rally past Chargers

(News4usonline) – Justin Herbert will have to wait another season to try to pick up his first NFL playoff win. That’s because the Los Angeles Chargers blew a 27-point first-half lead and watched the Jacksonville Jaguars roar back from their double-digit deficit to win an NFL wild-card playoff game, 31-30. 

“We just didn’t play clean enough football in the second half in all three phases,” Chargers head coach Brandon Staley said afterward in a postgame press conference. “We didn’t score the ball or possess it well enough on defense. We had far too many penalties in the second half that really hurt us and didn’t play well enough in the red area, didn’t perform well there in the two minutes at the end of the game. Just didn’t play a good second half of football as a team.”

Instead of moving on to the divisional playoff round, the Chargers got hit by a healthy dose of reality and are now officially out of the postseason. It shouldn’t be that way. But it is what it is. The Chargers are home for the rest of the playoffs because the team failed to close out Jacksonville. 

As a result of their epic collapse, the Chargers helped the Jaguars make history. Jacksonville, the No. 4 seed in the AFC, completed the third-biggest comeback in NFL playoff history. After surrendering 27 points through the first two quarters, the Jaguars went into lockdown mode and held the Chargers to just three points in the second half.  

“I thought penalties hurt us in the second half on defense,” Staley remarked. “On offense, we just didn’t sustain drives in the second half, and didn’t run the football effectively enough, and then didn’t do well enough on third down in the second half. We had some killer third and shorts that we didn’t make today. And then obviously we missed a kick down the stretch that really hurt us.”

After watching the Chargers’ defense intercept Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence four times in the first half of their AFC wild-card playoff game and with Los Angeles building a 27-0 lead, it looked very real that Herbert would finally get his first win in the postseason. 

Lawrence and the Jaguars shut the door on that possibility by outscoring the Chargers 24-3 in the second half.  

“Obviously a tough go for us,” said Herbert, who finished the game completing 25 of 43 passes for 273 yards and a touchdown. “As an offense, we need to do more in the second half. That falls on us, offensively, and as a quarterback, I need to perform better. You got to be able to put up more than three points in the second half. So I feel horrible for the defense for the incredible effort they put out there today. But got to be better as a team.” 

Jacksonville spotted the Chargers those 27 points by overcoming Lawrence’s four turnovers in the first half with a chopping wood approach. The Jaguars methodically worked themselves back into the game in the third quarter and played to win in the final period. Jacksonville’s defense held the Chargers to zero points in the fourth quarter, enabling the Jaguars’ comeback to bear fruit.  

And just like that, the Chargers went from domination in the first half to a full meltdown by the end of the fourth quarter. How did this happen? How did defeat snatch away what should have been a sure victory for Los Angeles?

Well, if you’re the Chargers, you’ve answered all of those questions in a spectacular fashion. What looked like was going to be a long and forgettable night for the Jaguars and their fan base turned out to be a glorious one for Lawrence and his teammates. 

“My hats off to our guys for just battling,” Jacksonville head coach Doug Pederson said.  “As deep a hole as we dug in the first half, there was – you guys have been around our team, you know there’s no quit in our guys. They did an outstanding job, obviously, in the second half, and K Riley [Patterson] kicking that ball at the end was obviously a thing of beauty.”

It sure didn’t start off that way for the Jaguars with the Chargers seemingly picking off Lawrence on just about every other throw he made in the first half. Asante Samuel Jr. had the game of his young pro career as he came up with three of those interceptions. 

However, just when things looked like rainbows and unicorns for the Chargers, it turned murky and then disastrous. Lawrence completed his night with four touchdowns and led the Jaguars on a game-winning drive that resulted in Patterson’s 36-yard field goal with no time remaining in the game.  

“I mean, I said it after the game. Kind of just sums up our season, the game tonight,” Lawrence remarked. “For myself, obviously yeah, definitely the worst half of my football life, of a lot of people’s football life, too. Some type of history probably in that stat. Really, I felt like only one of those plays was a big decision. I felt like I was seeing things all right. They made a couple great plays.”