NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Jacksonville Jaguars have a sad flight home after falling short to the Tennessee Titans in their final game of the season, 28-20.
The roller coaster of a game ended with lost opportunities and mistakes. Put simply, it was a heartbreaking loss.
"Me personally, I’m frustrated, I’m disappointed, I’m mad, I'm angry. My heart hurts, obviously for the players and coaches involved," said Jaguars Head Coach Doug Pederson. "They've worked their tails off. Today’s game was sort of our season in a nutshell really. The mistakes, the penalties, the turnovers, the missed tackles. Those were all the things that hurt us down the stretch."
Jaguars starting quarterback, Trevor Lawrence took the podium after the loss.
"It’s tough, it’s a surreal feeling. It’s kind of hard to put into words right now," said Lawrence.
"The whole season comes down to one game and when you look back and a few plays—your whole season comes down to a few plays and you weren’t able to make them. Of course, you’re thinking about if you did things differently, if one play went differently, or if you weren’t in certain situations or whatever," Lawrence added.
The Jaguars have lost the last five games out of six to close out the season. Something Jaguars fans saw too much of that contributed: Self-inflicted wounds.
"You think about all of that which that’s the hardest part about losing and losing games like this, is you go back and replay everything," said Lawrence, "It hasn’t really set in yet that we’re done, we aren’t going to be playing anymore this year. It’s going to be a long offseason. It’s tough to put into words right now."
In the 2022-2023 season, the Jaguars were known as the "second-half team," but Pederson said that narrative shouldn't have followed them into this season. The past is the past.
"You've got to remember this is a new year," said Pederson, "this isn’t last year. The teams we play are good football teams. They get paid to stop us, and we get paid to stop them, and move the football and vice versa. You've got to take everything—it’s kind of case-by-case, it’s year-by-year, it’s game-by-game."
The Jaguars ended with a winning record of 9-8 but were not able to earn their seat in the playoffs.
After the game, First Coast News caught up with some of the Jaguars' star players—Evan Engram, Travis Etienne Jr. and Zay Jones.
Each of the players had something different to say about the upsetting loss.
"It's not the ending that we wanted, and we gotta pull the positives from it," said Jaguars Wide Receiver Zay Jones. "We evaluate it and just try to keep moving forward and do the best that we can, but, yes, my heart hurts, this sucks. Losing sucks."
Jaguars Running Back Travis Etienne Jr. said he felt like the team lost track of the details.
"I feel like we weren't detail-oriented a lot of times," said Etienne. "We just got to all focus on ourselves, all do our job. Just one person do their 1/11th and everybody come together as an offense. That's when you see we were at our best, and I feel like that's what kinda held us back."
Jaguars Tight End Evan Engram said he wants the team to take the loss, and moving forward make it a part of the team's story.
"All I know is this feeling, the leaders of this team, the guys that are here, you know this is part of our story," said Engram. "We can either be victims of it, or you know, find a way to make it a part of our return, make it a part of our response."