Jan. 13, 2026, 10:09 a.m. ET
ESPN NFL analyst Bill Barnwell took a look back at the Jacksonville Jaguars’ loss to the Buffalo Bills to identify what went wrong in their defeat.
The element that Barnwell landed on when answering that question was that the Jaguars didn’t run the ball often enough.
For much of the second half of the season, the Jaguars struggled to move the ball on the ground. As Liam Coen said at one point during the regular season, there was a lot of meat being left on the bone in the run game.
However, against the Bills’ defense, that wasn’t the case. Jacksonville finished the game rushing for 154 yards, averaging a hefty 6.7 yards per rush. The run game found quite a bit of success rushing outside of the tackles.
Individually, Travis Etienne totaled 67 yards on only 10 carries, while Bhayshul Tuten logged 51 yards on just four attempts.
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“The duo of Tuten and Travis Etienne Jr. combined for just 14 carries, which they turned into 118 yards and a 71% success rate,” wrote Barnwell. “By EPA per designed rush by running backs, this was the 13th-most-efficient rushing performance of the season in any game by any set of backs. The Jags simply didn’t get to it enough.”
Perhaps more carries with the success that the Jaguars were having would have led to an additional scoring opportunity or two. Or even if it only helped extend some drives, that could have helped keep Josh Allen on the sidelines.
So why didn’t the Jaguars run the ball more? Liam Coen was asked post-game why he didn’t run the ball more often.
“I’m not really sure exactly what you mean,” Coen said of the question via Jaguars on SI. “But just called the game like the way I always call the game.”
Running the ball more doesn’t guarantee that the Jaguars win on Sunday, but as everyone reflects on what could have been, that is a part of the equation.