The Jacksonville Jaguars and Kansas City Chiefs are set to take the field at Arrowhead Stadium on Saturday for an NFL Divisional Round playoff game. The AFC West Champion Chiefs were on a bye last week, while the Jags won in miraculous fashion over the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round.
Earlier this season, KC beat Jacksonville 27-17 at home. Patrick Mahomes threw for 331 yards and four touchdowns as the Chiefs amassed over 500 total yards despite committing three turnovers.
“They gave us all we could handle,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said, “and it wound up being a good game at the end.”
Kickoff from Kansas City, MO, is at 4:30 p.m. ET. Kansas City is an 8.5-point spread favorite, and the game total is 52.5 points.
The Jags are coming off one of the most exciting comebacks you'll see. Down 27, Jacksonville stormed back to win 31-30 behind Trevor Lawrence's four touchdowns. The second-year pro managed to put four interceptions behind him, driving Jacksonville down the field on the final drive to set up Riley Patterson's game-winning field goal.
“You couldn’t write a crazier script,” Lawrence said. “We said in the locker room that’s kind of how our season’s going. We’re never out of the fight. … I’m kind of speechless, honestly, just to see what belief can do and to see when a team believes in each other what you can accomplish.”
Now, the Jags must put aside their emotions and focus on playing a complete game against the conference's top seed. Beating the Chiefs, who won 10 of their final 11 contests, will be challenging, but Jacksonvi lle did play them tough earlier this season.
They had us in the first half, I'm ngl.#IWATJ | #LACvsJAX pic.twitter.com/oUxtHicxeN
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) January 15, 2023
The Jaguars average 23.8 points (10th) and 357.4 total yards (10th) per game, including 124.5 rushing yards (14th) and 232.9 passing yards (10th). Jacksonville converted 40.8 percent of its third downs (13th-best) and 54.8 percent of its red zone visits into touchdowns (17th).
Lawrence led the offense with 4,113 passing yards, 25 passing touchdowns, and eight interceptions. His 54.7 QBR was ranked 15th in the NFL. Travis Etienne paced the ground attack, rushing for 1,125 yards and five touchdowns on 220 carries (5.1 YPC). Christian Kirk (84 receptions for 1,108 yards and 8 TDs) and Zay Jones (82 receptions for 823 yards and 5 TDs) were Jacksonville's top pass-catchers.
Linebacker Foyesade Oluokun led the team in tackles (184), and linebacker Josh Allen paced the unit with five sacks. Four Jaguars recorded three interceptions.
Jacksonville surrenders 20.6 points (12th) and 353.3 total yards (24 th) per game, including 114.8 rushing yards (12th) and 238.5 passing yards (28th). Its opponents converted 43.4 percent of its third downs (fourth-highest) and scored touchdowns on 59.6 percent of their red zone trips (ninth-highest).
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