Preview of Monday Night Football: Bengals vs. Jaguars: Calming the Fury

admin | December 4, 2023 | NFL | No Comments

While the Jacksonville Jaguars are making a strong drive for the top seed in the same postseason bracket, the Cincinnati Bengals are trying to salvage something from their heartbreaking loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers in order to maintain their modest hopes of making the playoffs.

The quarterback position is perhaps the most crucial in all of professional sports, including football. The two teams playing on Monday night best represent this idea of all.

The Jacksonville Jaguars made a trade for Mark Brunell from the Green Bay Packers a few years after they became an NFL team (-6.5).

to start their journey as a recognized professional squad. After also picking Hall of Fame lineman Tony Boselli and adding exceptional wide receiver Jimmy Smith in the same year, it was quite the coup.

What ensued was a great four-year stretch from 1996-99 wherein the Jaguars went 45-19 with four playoff appearances, including an AFC Championship Game appearance. Brunell made four Pro Bowls while operating in the rough-and-tumble former AFC Central, bringing the new team to immediate prominence.

However, after letting Brunell walk after the 2003 season, Jacksonville has had issues re-solidifying the position. They had a couple of flash-in-the-pan seasons from former first-round picks Byron Leftwich and Blake Bortles in 2005 and 2017, respectively, along with another from fourth-rounder David Garrard in 2007, but not much else has materialized.

In fact, in the 21-year span of 2000 (the year following Brunell’s last playoff appearance) and ending in 2020, the Jaguars had as many postseason appearances (four) as they did during No. 8’s career down south. However, the move they made in the 2021 draft has once again changed the trajectory of the franchise.

Trevor Lawrence was deemed a generational quarterback talent back as a freshman at Clemson and proved it throughout three seasons with the Tigers. It culminated with two National Championship appearances, with one victory.

Joe Burrow and the 2019 LSU Tigers were, of course, the ones who lost the National Championship. The Cincinnati Bengals (+10) Waiter hired Joe Burrow because they needed another generational talent, just like the Jacksonville Jaguars did a year later.

Even though the Bengals are a more established team than Jacksonville, they too had been expansion teams at one point. From Boomer Esiason, Carson Palmer, Andy Dalton, and Ken Anderson, fans have witnessed stretches of exceptional quarterback play, but they have also witnessed a decade-long drought marked by incompetence.

A list headed “The Lost Decade” included names like David Klinger, Jay Schroeder, Akili Smith, Neil O’Donnell, and Scott Mitchell, but Jeff Blake brought excitement for roughly three seasons, and Esiason added another half of one in 1997. With that, Jacksonville’s problems over a 20-year period may not have been as severe as Cincinnati’s incompetence from 1991 to 2002.

Nevertheless, they currently have two of the top young quarterbacks in the league. Though the Bengals are sadly missing theirs, Trevor Lawrence and Joe Burrow both had successful careers that began in 2019.

Burrow played a fantastic senior year for the LSU Tigers, recording one of the best collegiate quarterback seasons ever and going on to win the Heisman Trophy. The campaign was particularly captivating, considering that he was dropped from Ohio State.

Lawrence did not let his Clemson Tigers down, as he guided them to their second consecutive and fourth in five years National Championship Game. Both players went on to be back-to-back No. 1 overall picks in the NFL Draft after Burrow emerged victorious in that match.

Burrow’s absence has affected this one, as the Jaguars are currently a 10-point favorite on DraftKings, after initially being listed as the Bengals +8.5. In addition, though, is the disheartening report that rising star cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt has been placed on injured reserve.

The injuries to star players are particularly disappointing this year, as pretty much all of the best AFC teams have shown varying forms of vulnerabilities. Cincinnati is included in that group, as their slow start and a downward trend in defensive performance this year, but when looking at the Steelers, Chiefs, and Browns all losing on Sunday, the conference appears to be ripe for the taking.

While the Bengals technically have a heartbeat for the postseason, the prevailing sentiment seems to be that of looking to 2024 and in seizing the opportunity with a healthy Burrow back at the helm. That puts Jacksonville in the limelight for this year’s postseason bracket.

But tonight’s game is one that would allow the upstart Jaguars to take that vaunted next step in this regime. Sure, the Bengals are battered, but beating a team that has had high levels of recent success on primetime while heavily favored is a brick in which solid foundations are poured.

For a seemingly unlikely Cincinnati win and subsequent postseason push, there are three factors at play. Backup Jake Browning will need to grow more comfortable with additional starting experience and routinely get the team into the 20-plus-point range regularly.

Cincinnati will need to find more effectiveness in the running game, as that has been a deplorable facet of the team this year. And, with their opportunistic nature on defense, they’ll need to take advantage of any/all turnovers they create going forward.

For Jacksonville, it’s just about limiting those mistakes. Lawrence has cut down on his interceptions since throwing 17 as a rookie, but fumbles remain a little bit of an issue. They can’t be careless and expect to win against a reeling Cincinnati squad.

However, the Bengals will be underdogs in the upcoming weeks unless they can demonstrate that they are a winning team with Browning in charge.