Jacksonville Jaguars vs Carolina Panthers results, stats, final score

After providing the live takeaways and lingering questions from this week’s’ game, we take a quick review of the matchup after evaluating the televised gameplay from the Jaguars EverBank Stadium home opener.

As a note, this review is based on the non-all-22 film, while being published before the PFF grades are released (in an effort to remain truly uninfluenced and unbiased on what we see). Additionally, this style of review knowingly places some limitations on evaluating secondary play without confirming the full coverage looks. With that said, let’s get into some takeaways from the Jaguars’ 26-10 victory over the Carolina Panthers.

*Any opinions noted are those of Travis and not of the entire BCC staff or leadership. Of course, anyone can disagree when evaluating film. Any noted EPA, Success Rate, or other data was retrieved from rbsdm.com. Additional data provided by NFL Pro and NextGenStats.

1. Quarterback Play Evaluation

On 33 plays, QB Trevor Lawrence had:

In whole, this is one of those rare games where the advanced statistics pretty accurately match the play on tape. Lawrence began his day with an efficient first half, taking what the defense gave them while also capitalizing on the early defensive turnover. At the half, one might even say he played great ball control, game manager football by not placing the football in harm’s way, keeping the offense on schedule with four scoring drives on five attempts. When the routes weren’t there, he scrambled (twice) to quickly what was available to move on to the next play. Outside of his first drive, first down intentional grounding penalty, it was a quality half of playing within the offense (0.22 EPA per play and 4.2 total EPA on 19-plays).

However, after halftime, Lawrence was one for six with a late third quarter interception on a Travis Hunter underthrow – Trevor’s largest error on the day. While it was an incredible interception by Horn, Lawrence seemed to be reading the cornerback the entire way. Once Horn never breaks on the underneath route by Thomas Jr, either Lawrence doesn’t see Horn or he simply believes he would be able to thread the needle over the defender.

With the team nursing a 17-point fourth quarter lead, Jacksonville went into ball control mode after the interception, only attempting six more passes for 33-yards. In whole, it was a quality first two quarters of winning football, one quarter of rough gameplay, and one quarter of keeping the clock running resulting in a Jaguars victory in a game where Trevor Lawrence has less than a 90 QB rating (a rarity in Doug Pederson’s tenure).

With a 47% success rate on 17 rushes (including penalized plays), Etienne’s day was obviously pretty dominant in this one. Travis Etienne’s 148 yards rushing were the most rushing yards of any Jacksonville running back since Etienne’s 156-yard game in week 8 of the 2022 season against the Denver Broncos. However, this wasn’t a scenario where a long touchdown rush inflated the stats. Etienne had four explosive rushes of 10-plus yards. Even without the 71-yard rush Travis averaged 4.8 yards per carry (72 yards on the 15 additional rushes).

Tuten’s rough EPA scoring would be one where the data and the film don’t really line up, as Tuten’s 8-yard rush on first-and-10 and 3-yard rush on second-and-two would indicate a higher success rate than 33%, though a first down rush with under two minutes to go doesn’t increase your odds of scoring a touchdown before the half significantly. His advanced data was primarily dinged due to a fourth quarter rush for no gain on first-and-10, where the team was looking to run out the clock (4:39 remaining in the fourth).

As a note, LeQuint Allen had -0.72 EPA per play on his one target in the passing game, a first quarter 4-yard catch where he was unable to break the tackle in space. Neither Bigsby nor Tuten were targeted in the passing game, while Travis Etienne was 0.03 EPA per play on his three targets.

The offensive line had a reasonably stout day, across the board with the few blocking breakdowns that did occur showing up in the run game when passing off the defender in their combination blocks. Patrick Mekari passing off the defender (Wharton) off to Anton Harrison, where Anton was unable to cross his face resulted in the first Etienne stuff, while Mekari getting pushed back by Derrick Brown resulted in Tuen’s forth quarter stuff. This is sort of an expected issue in the run game earlier into the season, but notable on a day where Jacksonville had just three rushes for no gain.

Obviously, this matchup ended up being a tight end game, with Lawrence and Thomas Jr struggling to connect and Hunter being heavily involved in the short game, in search of YAC opportunities the tight ends and Dyami Brown. In a pretty significant shift, when mirrored against prior seasons, Lawrence did most of his damage inside of the numbers, peppering Strange and Brown on deep curls and digs. In prior seasons, speed outs and sideline hitches dominated the chart.

The offensive line gave up zero sacks and only six pressures with an 18.2 pressure percentage, per NFL Pro. This is last in the NFL, and most importantly, not inflated by a low time to throw (TTT), as Next Gen Stats have the Jaguars at 15th in the league in TTT at 2.74 seconds. The blocking was solid, sans Patrick Mekari’s 10-yard holding penalty on Lawrence’s third quarter scramble.

While the Jacksonville front came away with just one sack on the day, they were pretty active up front, keeping Bryce Young uncomfortable in the pocket. As a defense, the Jaguars are currently sixth in the NFL in total pressures with 16 and ninth in pressure rate at 40.0% prior to Monday Night Football.

5. Run Defense Evaluation

While the Jacksonville defense started off pretty shaky on the ground, in the first few series, the Jaguars defense was able to hold Carolina back after the weather delay, with Panthers running backs rushing for just 3.65 yards per carry (20 carries for 73 yards) on the day while in comeback mode. On the 25 total rushes (including QB scrambles) Carolina rushed for a total of 113 yards. The 4.5 yards per play is currently 20th in the NFL with Jacksonville sporting a:

The Jaguars and Indianapolis Colts were the only teams in the NFL to not stack the box once in week one (8+ defenders at or near the line of scrimmage at the snap). As the numbers indicate, it wasn’t the prettiest way to get to a win, with missed tackles still rearing their head, but these numbers were also dragged down by QB scrambles, where Bryce Young rushed for 40 yards on 5 called pass plays. Nevertheless, running QBs are a thing and the Jaguars will have to figure out how to get them on the ground. Jacksonville allowed a 22-yard rush to Young on a second quarter third-and-11 with a diving Dennis Gardeck unable to get the QB down around the line of scrimmage.

The secondary probably had a good day when you’ve held the opposing quarterback to a -0.21 EPA per play (17th percentile for all QBs from 2010 to 2020). Young’s completion percentage over expected was -12.4 (9th percentile). Obviously, not all of the credit goes to the secondary, as Young also didn’t have his best day seeing the field or throwing the ball, but you play the team that lines up on Sunday.

On the tape, both safety Andrew Wingard and Eric Murray had great games, with Murray’s sole error occurring on the fourth quarter Chuba Hubbard touchdown catch, where he missed the sideline tackle attempt with 4:47 remaining in the game and an opportunity to shut the door.

LB Ventrell Miller, CB Jourdan Lewis, and CB Tyson Campbell each had great last-second pass breakups on passes that were in the Panthers’ receivers’ hands in this one. Overall, both Murray and Lewis nearly deserved defensive player of the game honors, if not for Foye playing an unreal game.

Travis Hunter had a pretty quiet day in coverage, outside of giving up slightly to much space to Tet McMillian on a second quarter, third-and-six slant that went for 12 yards.

Cam Little went 4 for 4 with a long of 47 yards while making both of his extra point attempts. Little did, however, have one kickoff short of the landing zone and another go out of bounds. Punter Logan Cooke punted just twice, with an average of 55.5 yards, a long of 57 yards. One punt was downed inside of the 20. Rayaun Lane and Antonio Johnson were the starting gunners on the punt team with Lane also making a tackle on a second quarter kickoff.

Parker Washington had just one punt return opportunity, with Carolina only punting twice while in comeback mode. His one return went for just 7.0 yards. Bhayshaul Tuten muffed his sole kick return opportunity, resulting in just a 12.0-yard return to the 22-yard line. Tank Bigsby’s lone kick return went for 20.0 yards, to the 28-yard line.

As we discussed in the post-game review, while a winning effort on the field, the Jaguars still racked up 11 penalties for 93 yards to Carolina’s 4 penalties for 35 yards. When we consider that it was truly 13 total penalties, spread across every phase of the game, that simply will not do against better rosters. An opening drive with three penalties for 32 yards (two of which were holding penalties), plus a third quarter drive with two additional holding penalties, must be cleaned up quickly.

They won. They found a way to deal with adversity:

Let’s be honest; we’ve seen prior Jacksonville rosters crumble while facing similar or smaller obstacles such as Sunday. This one didn’t. Were the penalties self-inflicted? Yes. Do they have to correct them? Absolutely. But they’re making those corrections while coming off a win, unlike the 2022 five-turnover, rainy Philadelphia Eagles matchup or the 2024 Week 5 Colts game, where the team tried their hardest to give it away to Indianapolis. They didn’t here. The defense held Carolina to a turnover on downs after the Jarrian Jones pass interference penalty, they forced a fumble on the Cam Little kickoff out of bounds and got another turnover on downs on the kickoff short of the landing zone. While arguably baby steps, that’s progress, and probably the best you can hope for in game one of year one in a new scheme, new roster, and overall new regime.

That’s it from me for week 1! What were your takeaways from the game, Duval? Let us know in the comments!