Turnover-free football has gone from a goal to a necessity for the division-chasing Jaguars

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Playing turnover-free football is every team’s goal. It’s almost a necessity for the Jacksonville Jaguars right now.

The Jaguars are 3-1 in games in which they don’t have any giveaways this season, and they probably would be 4-0 had Brandon McManus not missed a field goal in the final minutes of regulation against Cincinnati in early December.

Ball security has become coach Doug Pederson’s main point of emphasis in recent weeks, with injuries mounting and the team’s margin for error becoming thinner.

It surely will be atop the to-do list when Jacksonville (9-7) tries to secure a playoff spot in its regular-season finale at Tennessee (5-11) on Sunday. If the Jaguars win, they clinch the AFC South for the second consecutive year. If they lose, they still could land a wild card if Pittsburgh and Denver lose.

The Jaguars should like their chances against the Titans if they don’t turn the ball over. They played turnover-free football twice in their last three meetings with Tennessee and won by 20 and 14 points.

And Jacksonville dominated Carolina 26-0 while playing mistake-free football Sunday, a game plan that saw C.J. Beathard fill in for injured starter Trevor Lawrence and throw just three passes in the second half.

“Football is not a hard game, not a complicated game,” Pederson said. “Sometimes we as coaches and players complicate things a little bit too much. If you just focus on the basics: You don’t turn the ball over, you don’t have a lot of penalties or pre-snap penalties on offense, you make open-field tackles, you’re in the right position, you control the line of scrimmage on both sides, you run the ball effectively enough in the game to control the game.

“Those are recipes for any football team. Obviously for ours and where we are, you can win games that way in this league.”

WHAT’S WORKING

Jacksonville topped 100 yards rushing for the first time since before Thanksgiving. Travis Etienne’s 62-yard touchdown run was the highlight of the team’s 155 yards on the ground. The Jaguars had gone five games without coming close to reaching the century mark.

The team’s second-most rushing yards of the season took pressure off Beathard and provided Jacksonville with some much-needed offensive balance. The Jags are 7-1 when they rush for at least 100 yards this season.

WHAT NEEDS HELP

The Jaguars have struggled in the red zone the last three weeks, managing five touchdowns on 15 trips inside the 20-yard line. They were much better during the previous four-game stretch, scoring on all eight red-zone possessions.

Now they face the league’s best red-zone defense. Tennessee has allowed touchdowns on just 38% of opponents’ trips inside the 20.

STOCK UP

Josh Allen and Travon Walker have become one of the NFL’s most dominant pass-rushing duos.

Allen notched three sacks against Carolina and broke the team record for sacks in a season. He now has 16 1/2, two more than Calais Campbell had in 2017. Allen has 44 in five seasons, leaving him 11 shy of the franchise mark held by Tony Brackens (1996-2003).

Walker, the overall No. 1 pick in 2022, has nine sacks after finishing with 3 1/2 as a rookie. He has at least half a sack in six of Jacksonville’s last seven games.

STOCK DOWN

Jamal Agnew may have played his final game with Jacksonville. The receiver/returner is headed to injured reserve for the second time in less than two months, this one because of a broken bone in his lower left leg.

It was a setback for the Jaguars and probably for Agnew, a 28-year-old who is in the final year of a three-year, $14.25 million contract. He has now missed 16 games in three seasons with Jacksonville, which drafted Parker Washington in the sixth round in 2023 as his eventual replacement.

INJURIES

All eyes will be on Lawrence to see if he’s able to practice after missing last week with a sprained throwing shoulder. Receivers Christian Kirk (groin) and Zay Jones (hamstring/knee) could return, but it will depend on how healthy they feel late in the week.

KEY NUMBER

3 — The number of consecutive games Jacksonville has won against Tennessee. The Jaguars have won four in a row against this division rival just once before, between 1996 and 1998, when the Titans were still the Houston Oilers.

NEXT STEPS

The Jaguars, who have clinched consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 2004-05, are trying to win back-to-back division titles for the first time since 1998-99.