The Jaguars are 3-1 because Trevor Lawrence kept the ball out of the wrong hands. The Bengals are 2-2 because their final snap left them at the Jacksonville 12.
Lawrence went 18 of 23 for 227 yards, one touchdown, no interceptions, a 122.3 rating, at 9.9 yards an attempt. He also absorbed four sacks for 15 yards. That is the shape of this Jacksonville offense so far: pressure is the cost of doing business, and turnovers are not. The only takeaway recorded on either side was Foyesade Oluokun's interception, returned 5 yards. Cincinnati's defense got home four times and still couldn't make Lawrence pay.
On the ground, the Jaguars ran a spread-the-carries rotation. Bhayshul Tuten took 17 carries for 73 yards with a 20-yard long. Chris Rodriguez Jr. needed six carries for 35 yards and a touchdown, and his 25-yard run was the longest of the day by either back. Parker Washington got one carry for 3 yards. No Jacksonville back broke the game open. They didn't have to, because Lawrence was completing passes at better than nine yards a clip.
The real engine was Brenton Strange: 7 catches on 8 targets for 95 yards, with a 23-yard long. He also fumbled, and Jacksonville recovered it, which is the only reason that line stays clean. Brian Thomas Jr. saw two targets, caught both for 17 yards, and scored from 10. Josh Cameron turned two catches into 42 yards. This is a passing game that runs through a tight end right now, not a receiver.
Cincinnati's drive chart tells the story. With 1:56 left, Logan Cooke punted 45 yards to the Cincinnati 8, and Dohnte Meyers brought it back 9 yards to the 17. That is where the Bengals started, needing 83 yards. Burrow got them most of the way. At 0:56 he hit Chase Brown short over the middle for 9 yards to the Jacksonville 12. The next entry in the play log is END GAME. One more completion, or one more yard in a different spot, and this is a 21-22 game with a kick pending.
Rayuan Lane III was in on both of those plays, credited on the punt return and on the tackle of Brown at the 12. He finished with 8 tackles, 6 of them solo. Jarrian Jones added 7 tackles, a tackle for loss and 3 passes defensed. Jacksonville's secondary tackled the catch, and on the last drive that was worth more than any pass rush.
The Cincinnati side of the box is thinner than it should be. Burrow is listed as a leader in both passing and rushing, which is its own scouting report. Chase Brown, Samaje Perine and Tee Higgins all show up as category leaders without a yardage line attached in the data available here, and I won't guess at what they were.
So take the Jaguars' record at face value and be skeptical of the process behind it. Four sacks allowed, a tight end leading the receiving corps, and a five-point margin that required a fourth-quarter stop at their own 12. Good teams win that game. Teams that win that game every week don't exist, and Jacksonville hasn't shown me the margin to survive when Lawrence's ball security regresses even slightly. I'm not buying the 3-1 as a ceiling. I'm buying it as a floor they had to scrape off the turf on Sunday.
