Doug Pederson: Road game vs. Chiefs will be ‘benchmark’ for Jaguars
The 2022 season has been a wild ride for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Despite a positive point differential and stats that would suggest the team should be in the playoff race, the Jaguars have lost two-thirds of their games.
Jacksonville snapped a five-game losing streak with a come-from-behind win against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 9, but does the team have what it takes to pull off a road upset against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday?
Jaguars coach Doug Pederson says the team’s performance against one of the league’s best will say a lot about what kind of team he has on his hands.
“It’s one of those benchmark games,” Pederson said Wednesday. “You’re going against a team that’s been one of the top in the AFC and won a Super Bowl here recently. It’s a challenge. It’s a challenge to go on the road, it’s a great place to play, it’s loud. The weather is going to be a little cold, 40 degrees-ish.
“It’s going to be a different environment for us, but we don’t make any excuses. We just go play and try to gauge where we are against a football team that’s pretty good.”
The Chiefs have played in each of the last four AFC Championships and earned trips to the Super Bowl in two of those years. So far this season Kansas City has raced out to an AFC-best 6-2 record and unsurprisingly enter Sunday as a large favorite against the 3-6 Jaguars.
After losing on the road in Week 1, the Jaguars had arguably their most impressive result of the season two weeks later when they flew to California and beat the Los Angeles Chargers, 38-10.
