JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jaguars have a chance to keep a rival reeling and shake off a forgettable finish in Cincinnati that ushered in a new set of questions. <\/p>\n
The Jaguars have their first divisional opponent of the year coming to town on Sunday at 1 p.m., a struggling Texans (0-2) team that\u2019s already two games behind in the AFC South race. <\/p>\n
The Jaguars (1-1) could, and should, be 2-0. But they gift wrapped a comeback opportunity for the Bengals and backup quarterback Jake Browning in Week 2. As stinging as that loss was, there\u2019s real reason for optimism for Jacksonville under head coach Liam Coen<\/a>. The Jaguars aren\u2019t as bad as their second-half lapse in Cincinnati indicates, and they\u2019ve made significant gains in some troublesome areas. <\/p>\n The big turnaround<\/p>\n Take away the 92-yard drive of Cincinnati at the finish in the last game, and the Jaguars have had an excellent start to the season. Anthony Campanile\u2019s defense has six takeaways (five interceptions), with both of those totals leading the NFL. Jacksonville had just nine takeaways last year under Ryan Nielsen. <\/p>\n The ground game has taken major strides, too. Travis Etienne<\/a> ranks second in the league in rushing yardage (214) and is averaging a robust 7.1 yards per carry. Coen did wonders with the rushing game during his season with Tampa Bay, taking the Buccaneers from the league\u2019s worst ground game, to the fourth-best in the NFL. <\/p>\n A big part of that success was better performance on the offensive line. Trevor Lawrence <\/a>has been sacked just once, and it came on the final drive against Cincinnati. <\/p>\n BTJ\u2019s struggles<\/p>\n The story through two weeks of the season has been receiver Brian Thomas Jr.\u2019s notable struggles<\/a>. The 31-27 loss to the Bengals pushed that issue to the forefront. <\/p>\n \u201cBut we\u2019re in a Week 2, everybody, so I think we can all just take a deep breath, give B.T. a little space,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be just fine. I\u2019m not worried about him at all. \u2026 He\u2019s too good of a player to not be involved and make those plays down the field that we all know he can make. I\u2019ve got all the confidence in the world in him and I\u2019m excited for just another opportunity for him this week to get going.\u201d<\/p>\n JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA – SEPTEMBER 07: Brian Thomas Jr. #7 of the Jacksonville Jaguars scores a second quarter touchdown against the Carolina Panthers during the game at EverBank Stadium on September 07, 2025 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Megan Briggs\/Getty Images) (2025 Getty Images)<\/p>\n Thomas let up on a play that led to an interception and dropped an easy ball on fourth down that would have essentially sealed the game. Coen said this week that Thomas was dealing with a wrist injury. He was a full participant in Wednesday\u2019s practice but was limited on Thursday.<\/p>\n Coen and Lawrence both said that they have confidence that Thomas, a second-year player from LSU, will turn it around. Thomas has just five catches and 49 yards on 19 targets this season.<\/p>\n \u201cJust like anybody on this team, nobody was pleased with the outcome,\u201d Coen said. \u201cAnd we had some good conversations, really good conversations and everybody was frustrated, but at the end of the day, he\u2019s got a great opportunity to bounce back, as does the rest of our team and feel really confident about that.\u201d<\/p>\n The Texans and the dubious history<\/p>\n The last time Houston played in Jacksonville, linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair leveled a sliding Lawrence and gave him a concussion<\/a>. Lawrence ultimately went on injured reserve and had shoulder surgery. Al-Shaair was suspended three games<\/a>. There will almost certainly be a bit of tension just from Al-Shaair\u2019s presence in Jacksonville. <\/p>\n Al-Shaair didn\u2019t reach out to Lawrence after the hit.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m past that. I\u2019m way past that at this point in my life, so it\u2019s not something I\u2019ve thought about since then. Everybody\u2019s different, it\u2019s football, it\u2019s a violent game and obviously it\u2019s unfortunate when things like that happen and I don\u2019t want to get into all that again,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cWe\u2019re past that. So, I\u2019m not going to look in the rear-view mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n Coen said he doesn\u2019t expect there to be an issue on Sunday.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve really tried not to look back much at last year, whatever it is, we\u2019re trying to really go forward and each year is a new year,\u201d he said. \u201cEach week is a new week. Look, I think these guys are aware of what is at stake in terms of just the competitiveness between these two teams and that we haven\u2019t had a ton of success, but that\u2019s the past and we\u2019re looking forward and these guys, I think have the right mentality the way that they\u2019re approaching things, the way that we competed in the first two games.\u201d<\/p>\n A greater issue for Jacksonville when it comes to the Texans is the history between the teams. <\/p>\n Houston has dominated the series. <\/p>\n The Texans are the newest NFL franchise, playing their first game eight years after the Jaguars entered the league. Houston has a 31-15 lead in the series and has beaten the Jaguars 15 out of 23 times in Jacksonville. The Jaguars haven\u2019t won a game against the Texans at EverBank Stadium since Dec. 17, 2017. <\/p>\n \u201cIf we\u2019re just being honest, haven\u2019t had a ton of success against,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cSo, it\u2019s always a game that I\u2019m wanting to get after them and a game we want to win, especially because it\u2019s a division opponent and it\u2019s a big one for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jaguars have a chance to keep a rival reeling and shake off a forgettable…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2056],"tags":[7,221,253,2368,213,1642,11589,6,14035,222,314],"class_list":{"0":"post-382956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston-texans","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-texans","11":"tag-houstontexans","12":"tag-jaguars","13":"tag-liam-coen","14":"tag-news4jags","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-sports4jax","17":"tag-texans","18":"tag-trevor-lawrence"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115236919552637883","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}