Are the Jaguars at 6-4 a mirage or does this team have a legitimate shot at being a playoff team in a tough AFC wild card battle? Amazingly, if the season ended today, I believe the way it lines up, they would be a wild card team. Having watched them a few times this year, I like some of the pieces they have in place and the players seem to have jumped back on the DelRio bandwagon. However, what have they really accomplished and, more importantly, do they have what it takes to win 4 or 5 of their last 6 games to put themselves in position for a playoff spot? Their most recent close win against an inferior opponent, the Bills, got me thinking…… Haven’t a lot of inferior opponents played the Jags tight our outplayed them this year? Fortunately for us, we have a large sampling to analyze since the Jags have only played 2 games the whole season against opponents that currently have a better than .500 record. After analyzing the 8 games they’ve played against .500 or worse opponents, my feeling is that, yes, they are being outplayed by some of these teams. Obviously the Seahawks game is one. Their 2nd match-up with the Titans is another. And we could probably make a pretty strong case that the Bills actually outplayed the Jags on Sunday, but just made too many mistakes. Overall, though, the Jags are clearly the better team even though the scoreboard is close in a lot of these contests. The Jags hold a 6-2 record against non-winning opponents this year, which is decent. And fortunately for them, 4 of their remaining 6 opponents do not hold winning records. Based upon what they’ve done this year, I don’t personally believe that they can win all 4. They will probably trip up against the Dolphins or 49ers. If they do trip up, in order to still get up to 10 wins and possibly get a playoff spot, they are going to have to beat a winning opponent left on their schedule (either the Pats or Colts). I’m not sure they’re up to THAT task, but we shall see. Thoughts from everyone else?
