Jacksonville Jaguars defensive teammates celebrate with DeVon Hamilton (52) after he picked up a first-half fumble against the New England Patriots Sunday. (JOHN STUDWELL / Special to the Daily News)

JACKSONVILLE – Coming off last week’s crushing loss at Denver against the Broncos, the Jacksonville Jaguars weren’t just looking for a victory.

They were looking for ownership of Sunday’s game against the defending AFC Champions. 

After Sunday’s 35-6 mastery and dismantling of the New England Patriots, they were more than proud to take ownership of this one.

“It was a good response,” Jaguars coach Liam Coen said. “It was the response we were looking for and we were talking about all week, winning the game in all three phases (offense, defense and special teams). It was fun to watch.”

Trevor Lawrence moved into second place on the Jaguars all-time touchdowns thrown list, passing up Blake Bortles to get to 105 for his career with three scores, only Mark Brunell ahead of him.

“I thought we played really well,” said Lawrence, who finished 19-of-29 passing for 182 yards and three touchdowns with one interception. “We played really complementary. Our defense played great, had some huge turnovers and came up with big stops and held them in the red zone (where the Patriots could not come up with a touchdown inside the Jaguar 20). We fed off of that and were able to score when the defense made a big play and get us the ball. I thought we had a good plan.”

That only tells half the story, though. The defense was also focused after last week’s second-half meltdown against the Broncos by picking off quarterback Drake Maye twice and recovering a Maye fumble.

“I think DNA showed up in practice,” said cornerback Jarrian Jones, who picked off a Maye pass that led to Chris Rodriguez Jr.’s first touchdown as a Jaguar, a 5-yard run up the middle, late in the third quarter. “And we truly love each other. We’re really close and it’s like a true brotherhood. I think we’re hard on each other and I think that brings the best out of each other, especially in the cornerback room. But in a game like this, our DNA showed up.”

Both Jones and linebacker DeVon Hamilton pointed to the preparation going into the week after the 20-13 loss to the Denver Broncos.

“It was our primary focus after last week to try and learn our lesson about that and wanted to finish the game” Hamilton said. “We went out there and dominated the second half. 

“It starts during the week at practice,” Coen said. “It started Wednesday and Thursday in practice. They were super intentional about playing better covers throughout the week. It does correlate. Practice performance equals game reality. We got our hands on a ton of balls in practice. When you raise the floor, practice should be more competitive, and it has been. But we should still dominate. So those guys had confidence going into this week.”

It didn’t stop the 1-2 Patriots from outgaining the Jaguars by two yards, 317-315, but it showed up in big plays.

A fumble by Maye on a pass attempt that DaVon Hamilton recovered late in the first quarter that ultimately led to the first score of the game, a Lawrence-to-Josh Cameron 12-yard strike up the middle.
The first interception in Travis Hunter’s career in the end zone of Maye as the Patriots were driving for a score before halftime.
Jones’ interception late in the third quarter run back to the 5 that led to the Rodriguez score.

The Jaguars’ defense went back to making big plays.

“Interceptions are great to catch, but I was just so focused on winning the game and just focused on the next play,” Hunter said. “We practiced hard. We made it hard on ourselves this week. We had no mistakes, and continued to grind and continue to go out there and show the practice squad that you won’t get anything on us and we won’t allow you to do anything because we had to be better this week.”

The Jaguars maintained their lead in the AFC South with a 2-1 record, one game better than the Indianapolis Colts, who finally won their first game of the season against struggling division rival Houston. Both Houston and Tennessee remain winless.

But now starts another test as the Jaguars won’t see the comfy confines – if you can call it such with all the construction going on around it to prepare for the Stadium of the Future in 2028 – until a Nov. 1 game against the Colts. Next week, the Jaguars are in Cincinnati to face off with the 2-1 Bengals.

And hope to continue to roll after the bounceback victory against the Patriots.

“How we responded (after the loss to the Broncos) was the best part,” said receiver Parker Washington, who caught an eye-opening, ground-hugging 17-yard touchdown pass from Lawrence after being locked up with and interfered on the play with cornerback Marcus Jones. “We want to continue with how we started and finish the game.”

Mark Blumenthal is sports editor of the Palatka Daily News. You can reach him at mblumenthal@palatkadailynews.com or on Bluesky @markybee1966.bsky.social.