the JAGS.”

to standing-room-only ticket holders. The first 60,000 of the more than 70,000 fans in attendance received a teal-colored rally towel, on which was screen-printed IT WAS ALWAYS THE JAGS.

At 8:01 PM, all eyes turned to one of the stadium’s light towers. Standing there, more than 200 feet above the crowd, was the team’s costumed mascot Jaxson De Ville. The furry feline jumped from the tower, suspended by a few thin wires that, after an initial death-defying dive, gently lowered him onto the field. Few fans remained seated at this time and they all remained standing as the Star Spangled Banner was performed by electric guitarist Paul Wayne, leader of the local band Duval County Line. Fireworks lit up the sky as Wayne and his mullet rocked the anthem to a close. This was “Duuuval!” on display for the whole country to see. The atmosphere was electric. The few and vastly outnumbered Titans fans in attendance must have felt hopeless. There was no chance the Jaguars could lose this game. They almost did.

“I swear, when we came into the halftime, we knew we were going to win,” said Jags linebacker Josh Allen. “We talked about how we were going to win. We were down, but we weren’t out of the fight. We’ve been in that situation before. We knew what we had to do to win this game. Stop the run, pressure the quarterback, create takeaways. We ended up doing that.”

Jaguars’ wide receiver Christian Kirk was among those who heaped praise on Allen and his defensive teammates, crediting them with the victory. “They won the game tonight,” Kirk said in the locker room following the win. “They’ve been incredible these past couple of weeks. Tonight, offensively we had our struggles.

Didn’t put our best foot forward, but the defense just kept chugging away. They put us in a position and kept us in the game the whole entire time.”

For head coach Doug Pederson, the emotions endured during January 5 game were indicative of the entire 2022 season campaign. “It’s like I told the guys a second ago, that this game tonight kind of symbolizes our season,” he said. “There we some struggles. There were some highs, some lows, but in the end, we had the victory. I’m so proud of the guys for the way they have just—all season long—just hung together and, you know, through the face of adversity at times, we stayed the same. Just stayed the same. We kept trusting each other, kept building on what we do.”

The team’s outward display of confidence wasn’t shared by many fans as the season rolled through October. Five straight losses—to the Eagles, Texans, Colts, Giants and Broncos—all but sunk hopes for the playoffs. The loss to the lowly Broncos in London was a tough pill to swallow. A 40-14 trouncing by the Lions in Detroit on December 4 was a punch to the gut for fans. Yet, perhaps somewhere on the flight back from England, the team changed somehow. Losing would no longer be accepted, and the Jags strung together four consecutive victories against the Titans, Cowboys, Jets and Texans. The playoffs were back in play. A win over the Titans at season’s end would seal the deal.

“You know, we had to win a ton of games down the stretch. We were able to do it. We never lost faith or belief in ourselves,” said quarterback Trevor Lawrence. “Really how we got here was just taking one week at a time, and that’s the message especially this week. You only get one week at a time.

I think that’s exciting for this group because we’ve been so good at that the last two months of just—one week at a time, just keeping one foot in front of the other, keep stacking great days. We gave ourselves a shot, and we went and took it tonight, so it feels really good.”

“We knew that five game stretch that we had, we had to find a way to win,” Allen said. “I think we weren’t finding those ways to win in that moment. When we were put back in that situation again, we capitalized.”

Winning the finale meant that the Jags are only the second team in NFL history to make the playoffs after starting the season with 3 wins and 7 losses in the first ten games. “Nobody ever lost faith,” Lawrence said. “Everybody believed in one another. We never started pointing the finger. We lost five straight, and we just got tighter. After the bye week, we started correcting some things and started rolling. It’s cool to see a team come together like we have, and we’re just excited to get another opportunity next week.”

It was an unlikely dream, for sure. But this dream came true. A 20 to 16 win over the

Titans, a hated AFC rival, capped a long and improbable season. The 2021 Jaguars were a mess, a laughing stock franchise reduced to competitive ashes following the tenure of head coach Urban Meyer. Meyer was unceremoniously fired during the season and Jaguars owner Shad Khan was tasked yet again with hiring a new head coach. He selected Doug Pederson, a coach with a Super Bowl victory on his resume, to steer the ship back on course. It was a good choice.

“One of the things I’m always going to do is shoot straight and be honest with them. The transparency is key. The communication is key. I think we just built over time that trust factor, and it began to show throughout the course of the year,” said Pederson. “I think that’s why we hung together, in the middle part of our year, that month of October. You have five straight losses. It could go sideways in a hurry, and it didn’t.”

The 2022 Jags finished the regular season with a 9-8 record, marking its first winning campaign in five years. The team also earned its second AFC South division title since Khan purchased the franchise following the 2011 season. When asked how he felt after the game, Khan was understandably thrilled. “Obviously, it’s a feeling hard to describe. I’m speechless But Doug [Pederson]. Trent [Baalke], their staff, obviously the players, you know, what a difference they’ve made,” he said, smiling and heaping more praise on the coach. “He understands how important it is to the city and everything else, what we’ve done. It’s wonderful to see what’s happening.”

“Just think about back in April and May when we first got together, you’re trying to teach a winning culture. You’re trying to flip the script, so to speak. You just are not sure until you start playing games just how it’s going to look,” Pederson said during the post-game press conference. “We’ve talked about playing meaningful games in the month of December and January, so here we are. The more success you have, the fans will show up, and they did that. So, I’m very proud of our fans. It was a great atmosphere. Just electric and loud.”

The final game followed a playbook the Jaguars had used for much of the season. Fall behind early and then come back late to win. In fact, the Jags trailed the Titans for all but the last three minutes of the game. On this night the offense was anemic, sputtering to one touchdown and two field goals while trailing deep into the fourth quarter, a 15-minute period that saw the team gain zero yards on nine plays. The defense, it seemed, would be needed to save the day. Save it did, all thanks to a play that will go down in Jaguars history.

With two minutes and 50 seconds remaining, Jaguars safety Rayshawn Jenkins rushed in on a blitz and sacked Titans quarterback Josh Dobbs, knocking the ball from his hand in the process.

Linebacker Josh Allen, in a fortuitous example of being in the right place at the right time, scooped up the bouncing ball and sprinted untouched into the end zone for a touchdown.

The stadium literally shook as some 70,000 fans exploded in disbelief. In a night packed with raucous emotion, the loudest cheering came as Allen crossed the white line for the score. “To see the stadium packed tonight was awesome,” said Lawrence. “One of the best game environments I’ve been in, honestly. It was special. They were loud all game. It was really, really cool.”

“You could just see all the joy, and that type of energy comes from all the hard work, dedication and sacrifice by each and every person in this building to get to this point,” Kirk remarked following the game. “For it to pay off, it’s an incredible feeling. To be able to share that moment, everybody in this building that’s a part of this deserves to feel that.”

Perhaps it was the man who caused the game-winning touchdown who best summed up the evening. “It was always the Jags,” Jenkins said. “It’s always us, man.” u