Although the Jacksonville Jaguars were defeated 31-24 by the Philadelphia Eagles on Saturday night, the team and Jaguar fans should be happy about what we saw from our starters. Keep in mind that the starters only played the first two and a half quarters, leaving the field with a 24-16 lead. After our first and second string players left the field, the Eagles offense began to catch fire against our porous defense. They went on a 15-0 scoring run to bring the game to an end. This scoring run included a 98-yard drive that started from our 2 yard line. Our third and fourth string offensive teams were just as bad as their defensive counterparts.
Although the crowd would still like to see their team win, most fans understand that the purpose of the pre-season is to evaluate the bench players and ultimately decide who will be waived from the roster. The team’s roster was trimmed from an 88 to a 75 man roster the day after the game. So no matter the final score, fans should be proud of those who performed well in this game. And thankfully, several of the players who performed poorly in the end of the game were waived from the team. There will be one more final roster cut after the Jaguars’ next and final pre-season game. The important thing to remember from this game is that the Jaguars’ starters played well on both sides of the ball. There were big plays being made on offense such as a 50+ yard touchdown run and a couple of touchdown passes. The defense made stops and caused a few turnovers as well. I was lucky enough to see this game in person, and it was probably the most exciting Jaguars’ pre-season games that I can remember. The Jaguars are on track to be much better than last year’s 2-14 team.