JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Moments after he left the interview room, where he'd reeled off terms such as "resiliency" and "fortitude" and "battle" and "fight" and even "flair for the dramatic" to describe his team's latest defying of NFL odds, Jack Del Rio leaned against a wall beneath EverBank Field and momentarily soaked it all in.
Gatorade bath and all.
"I don't know how many of these I can take, but I'll take every one of them because I absolutely love this," Del Rio sighed after his Jacksonville Jaguars erased two leads inside of four minutes to defeat the Cleveland Browns, 24-20, for an equal-parts improbable and thrilling victory for the home crowd Sunday. "To be honest with you, I'm a little bit of a junkie for this stuff."
If that's the case, the Jaguars (6-4) are feeding their coach's habit with grade-A stuff made to be mainlined.
Think about it: The Jags' four losses have come by a combined 99 points, yet the odds-on preseason favorites to finish last in the AFC South this season beat the Indianapolis Colts with a 59-yard field on the last play of the game, then the Houston Texans a week ago with a 50-yard Hail Mary pass as time expired, making them the league's lone team with two wins on the final play of regulation.
Then came Sunday. The Jags turned the ball over six times, including on five straight second-half possessions, yet still came back to win the game and seize -- thanks to the Colts' loss at New England -- a share of first place in the South. It's the latest Jacksonville has been atop of their division since 1999.
"Dude, this isn't Pop Warner. This is the NFL and this is grown men out there. This kind of stuff just doesn't happen."
-- Jaguars TE Marcedes Lewis on his team's knack for winning in dramatic fashion David Garrard, shaking off three picks and a fumble after halftime, first threw a late touchdown pass, and minutes later tossed a screen to Maurice Jones-Drew, who broke free for a 75-yard play to set up his game-winning 1-yard touchdown run with 1:20 to play. Jones-Drew, who also had to bounce back from a pair of turnovers (an interception on an option pass and a fumble), pounded the Browns with with 219 yards from scrimmage, including 132 on the ground.
His team needed every one of them.
"The highs and the lows of this game ... ," Del Rio said. "It's just tough to put into words."
Tight end Marcedes Lewis did a pretty good job of summing up the Jags' season to date.
"Dude, this isn't Pop Warner," Lewis said. "This the NFL and those are grown men out there. This kind of stuff just doesn't happen. Not in this league."
It does in Jacksonville, with all three of the crazy aforementioned victories happening at home this season. The Jags get four of their final six on the road -- starting next week against the New York Giants at the Meadowlands -- but few would have counted on them being in the thick of the AFC playoff hunt heading into Thanksgiving.
"Six turnovers? C'mon, man!" linebacker Kirk Morrison said. "You're not supposed to win a game with six turnovers. But in the end, all that matters is what's up on the scoreboard."
The Browns (3-7), with wins over heavyweights New Orleans and New England this season, had to leave town wondering how they became the first team to lose with a plus-five turnover margin since Dallas did it to Buffalo on Monday night in 2007. That's easy. Check out that stretch of Jacksonville giveaways and what Cleveland's offense did with them.
Next to nothing, that's what.
The first was a fumble by Jones-Drew that safety Abram Elam returned 18 yards for a touchdown and 14-10 Browns lead.
The next four Jacksonville possession all ended in Garrard turnovers, but each time, Cleveland and rookie quarterback Colt McCoy went three-and-out, managing only a field goal off the quartet of miscues.
The Jags defense limited Browns bruising running back Peyton Hillis and a blue-collar rushing attack to just 88 yards on 26 carries.
"I take my hat off to the defense. To stop those guys every time we had a turnover ..." Garrard said. "We talk about situations where where they breathe in, we breathe out. That's really what it was."
And just like that, the Jags sucked the air out of the Browns, while the crowd of 62,254 held its collective breath. Again.
Garrard, defying his run of miscues, marched the Jags 59 yards in 12 plays, hitting Lewis for a 14-yard touchdown on third-and-goal to tie the game at 17 with 3:41 to play.
McCoy, who made his share of plays on the afternoon in throwing for 241 yards to go with a touchdown and interception, responded instantly with a 38-yard pass to tight end Evan Moore. The play set up Phil Dawson's 41-yard field goal with 2:51 to go and a 20-17 lead for the visitors.
"We needed a play," Jones-Drew said.
So just before the two-minute warning, Jones-Drew took off on his remarkable 75-yard play to the Cleveland 1. The Jags scored two plays later for the lead, then iced the game -- after three darted completions from McCoy -- with an end-zone interception with just five seconds left.
Right about then, Jags receiver Kasim Osgood emptied the cooler over Del Rio's head.
Call it a Gatorade chaser for Del Rio's adrenaline fix.
"They could have buried us," Del Rio said.
Instead, the coach was left to answer questions about whether he believes, you know, in destiny and all that stuff. He does.
"What I also believe is that you don't find out until it's all done," Del Rio said.
In what is starting to look like a Year of the Cat, things will probably (and fittingly) go down to the very end.
No comments:
Post a Comment