It appears the Jacksonville Jaguars *might* have gotten blessed, fortunate that quarterback Trevor Lawrence *might* have gotten out with *only* a sprained ankle in the team’s 34-31 loss at home to Cincinnati Monday night.
Bengals kicker Evan McPherson hit a 48-yard field goal in overtime to give his team the win.
Lawrence left the game late and early diagnoses say that the franchise QB doesn’t have a more serious injury (Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence sprains right ankle in 34-31 overtime loss to Bengals on MNF). The Jags fell to 8-4, and probably thought they’d be cruising right now, but the Houston Texans are overachieving, and are chasing them in the AFC South.
Jacksonville is just one game in front of Houston and now the Colts, who are coming on under quarterback Garner Minshew. Both the Texans and the Colts are 7-5.
Jacksonville has a trip to face difficult defense Cleveland this Sunday (noon Central time on CBS), then a home game against another bruising team, Baltimore, on Dec. 17.
Now, to Monday night’s winner, Cincinnati, who won a road game on “Monday Night Football” for the first time since fall, 1990, when Boomer Esiason was the Bengals quarterback.
Jake Browning, the Bengals quarterback on Monday night, looked just as good as their injured franchise quarterback, Joe Burrow, out for the season after wrist surgery. Browning, the former University of Washington quarterback (who actually holds the record as the all-time winningest Pac-12 quarterback), went 32-of-37 for 354 yards and a touchdown.
Joe Mixon ran for 68 yards and two scores, and the Bengals got back to .500, getting their record to 6-6.
Ironically, the Jaguars now can root for the Bengals, as they host the Colts on Sunday, and then Cincinnati hosts Minnesota the week after. So Cincinnati has back-to-back home games after getting to 6-6, but they’re in a division, the AFC North, where everybody has a better record than them: Baltimore is 9-3, Pittsburgh and Cleveland are each 7-5, and everyone has just five games left.
The Bengals have already played the Ravens twice, but they can control their destiny against the Steelers and Browns. They visit the Steelers on Dec. 23, and then host the Browns on Jan. 7, the regular season finale.
