If the NFL official who threw the penalty flag on fourth down in Cincinnati in week two last season had instead kept it in his back pocket, the Jaguars would have beaten the Bengals and perhaps finished 14-3, which would have earned them the No. 1 seed in the AFC, a first round bye and home field throughout the playoffs.
But he didn’t, thinking there was no way rookie cornerback Travis Hunter could have broken up that pass without contacting the receiver. He called what he thought, not what he saw, and the Jaguars began the season 1-1 instead of 2-0.
That’s life in professional football and, candidly, almost everything else went the Jaguars’ way over the final 16 weeks of the 2025 season. Recall that defensive tackle DaVon Hamilton’s right hand barely scraped the two-point conversion pass from Geno Smith to Tyler Lockett and secured a win in Las Vegas.
How about “Monday Night Football” against Kansas City when Trevor Lawrence fell down on first and goal from the Chiefs’ one-yard line with less than 30 seconds to play and barely got up and got away from the first defender before stumbling again and getting up and getting away from the second defender before diving into the end zone for the game-winning touchdown just as three Kansas City defenders converged on him?
Or the curve ball of a touchdown pass Lawrence fired to wide receiver Parker Washington in Arizona to force overtime that slipped past the safety’s outstretched hands by millimeters? And there were more in the course of a 13-win season which reversed the four-win campaign of 2024, which forced wholesale changes in the Jaguars football hierarchy.
NFL football is usually decided by a touchdown or less and by a handful of plays, many of which are decided by inches … or less. Last season more of those plays went the Jaguars’ way that in any season since 2007.
Good teams, well-coached teams, make their own luck with their level of preparation and performance, and I certainly believe that. But there are moments that you cannot explain: Morten Anderson’s famous missed field goal that sent the 1996 Jaguars to the playoffs in their second season — and those moments go a long way towards making a season special.
You can’t predict those — like many try to guess what the Jaguars record will be by running their index finger down the schedule when it arrives every May.
But you can assume you aren’t likely to get them in consecutive seasons, which brings us to the point of this column, which is to try and predict the Jaguars’ record in 2026. I can’t say I’ve ever gotten it right, and no one who is being honest could either, but I factor in the game of inches and the decreased likelihood that nearly everything will go their way as it did in last season’s magical run to the AFC South title and a home playoff game in Liam Coen’s first season on the sidelines.
First, let me say this is a very, very good team, and as one NFL observer told me, they’re not only really talented, they’re very, very well coached. Coen has built a standard in a little more than a year on the job and his team has embraced it. He’s one of the game’s best play designers and has an uncanny knack for calling plays that the best of the best in this game have.
But I don’t think 13 wins is realistic with a schedule that sends them to Denver where the Broncos will be seeking revenge in week two, followed by the defending AFC Champion New England Patriots in week three. Then, Joe Burrow and Cincinnati. Then, that powerful Philadelphia Eagles’ ground game and the best defense in football in Houston in London in week six.
That’s a grueling schedule and it doesn’t let up after the bye week with the Baltimore Ravens, Chicago Bears, Pittsburgh Steelers and Dallas Cowboys, three of those in prime-time action, plus the divisional grind.
I’ll say this team, if it stays fairly healthy, is going to win 11 games in the regular season.
Trevor Lawrence will pick up where he left off last season, the defense will be better with sticky coverage in the secondary and more pass rush from Travon Walker and Josh Hines-Allen and another year with Anthony Campanile. Cam Little’s 68-yard field goal in Las Vegas is an NFL record, punter Logan Cooke is a weapon and Parker Washington is a threat to score every time he fields a punt.
This is a very good Jaguars team. The record might not be as good as in 2025, but the outcome could be much better. They have what it takes to make a run at the AFC Championship and their first Super Bowl appearance. It’s going to be a fun season in North Florida.
