Gene Frenette: Losing Trevor, Kirk adds to Jaguars' nightmare of overtime loss to Bengals

Of all the disasters that have befallen the Jacksonville Jaguars’ franchise in its 29-year history, they can only hope what transpired on a Monday Night Football stage against the Cincinnati Bengals doesn’t end up being a season-killer.

What began as one of the most highly-anticipated events in Jaguars history — a chance to seize the top AFC playoff seed position and show a national television audience that it’s a bona fide Super Bowl contender — disintegrated into a real-life nightmare.

Aside from the gut punch of the Jaguars losing 34-31 in overtime at EverBank Stadium, the specter of seeing Trevor Lawrence barely able to walk off the field even with assistance cast a pall over a frenzied crowd of 67,951.

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On top of the franchise quarterback going down, throw in losing top receiver Christian Kirk to a core muscle injury, nickel back Tre Herndon to a concussion, left tackle Walker Little to a hamstring and defensive tackle Foley Fatukasi being sidelined by a heel contusion.

Medically speaking, that attrition was uglier than the game result because of the potential long-term implications.

Shockingly, the Jaguars were one play away in overtime from becoming the conference’s No. 1 seed. Now you have to wonder if they can hang on to win the AFC South division, seeing as so many key parts of the roster will be chained to the trainer’s room for who knows how long.

On a night where many in attendance were dressed in black as part of the game promotion, that very color would aptly describe the somber postgame mood of not knowing what Lawrence’s status would be moving forward.

“For me, it’s sad because that’s my friend and I care for him,” receiver Zay Jones said of Lawrence. “Whenever you see someone go down on the field, it’s not ideal, it’s not what you want. But we’re professionals and we have a job to do.

“Whether it’s Christian [Kirk] goes down or Trevor goes down, the whole message is we still have a job to do. Now it’s to help win for them.”

Hope Trevor, Kirk are fast healers

The thought of the Jaguars (8-4) having to possibly go on without Lawrence and Kirk for any amount of time, especially with their toughest remaining games coming up against the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens, is terribly unsettling. Cleveland and Baltimore are the No. 1 and 2 defenses in the NFL, making injuries to a quarterback and a top playmaker even worse.

As the Bengals and Browns know all too well, having lost starting quarterbacks to season-ending injuries in Joe Burrow and Deshaun Watson, respectively, the Jaguars can only hold their collective breath that two of the team’s most indispensable players are not lost for an inordinate amount of time.

Head coach Doug Pederson said Tuesday that Lawrence has a high-ankle sprain that he didn't think would require surgery, but his status for Sunday's road game against Cleveland is uncertain, while Kirk "will obviously miss some time" and likely need surgery. He put no timetable on Lawrence's return.

"I'm not going to put him in a box like that, but we'll see how he is in a couple of days," said Pederson.

Judging by how much Lawrence was wincing in pain after Little inadvertently stepped on his right ankle in pass protection — followed by No. 16 slamming his fist on the ground and throwing his helmet in frustration — the initial prognosis didn’t look good.

At the time Lawrence dropped back to pass, the Jaguars were locked in a 28-28 tie and the 7-yard sack on third down pushed them back to the Bengals’ 30. Then adding insult to a potentially catastrophic injury, kicker Brandon McManus missed a 48-yard field goal that proved to be pivotal.

While backup quarterback C.J. Beathard did a respectable job leading the Jaguars to a game-tying field goal after Cincinnati reclaimed the lead at 31-28, sending the game to overtime, the uncertainty of Lawrence’s future status will surely hover over “Duuuval” in the coming days like a dark cloud.

It didn’t look promising in the postgame aftermath. Trevor’s circumstances were serious enough to warrant owner Shad Khan, son Tony Khan and Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke coming over to his locker to check on him.

The Jaguars’ power structure chatted a few seconds with Lawrence before quickly departing. The looks of concern etched on their faces as they left reflected what the rest of the team was undoubtedly feeling.

Watching Lawrence's ankle get taped up, followed by it being put in a walking boot, and then seeing him navigate the locker room with crutches in tow is not exactly a welcome sight during a December playoff run.

“Yeah, your first instinct is it just sucks for Trevor,” said Beathard. “You see him on the ground hurting, that kind of sucks. Takes your breath away on the sidelines of all the guys when you see your starting quarterback hurting like that.

“Trevor is my best friend on the team. When you see him go down like that, I’ve been here three years, he’s battled through all types of injuries, little dings here and there. To see him have to get carried off the field, it’s tough. It hurts.”

Lawrence has never missed a start in his 46-game NFL career. Kirk last missed time during the 2020 season with the Arizona Cardinals, first early in the year for a groin injury and near the end for a positive COVID-19 test.

Given the team’s lead in the AFC South is down to one game over the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts, the Jaguars can only hope Lawrence and Kirk are fast healers.

Even if they come back sooner rather than later, it still means they'll have to deal with the mental and physical battle of trying to perform at their best coming off an injury, which can impact future performance.

Experience on Beathard’s side

If the Jaguars must ride part of the season’s remaining five games with Beathard, at least it has a backup with a ton of playing experience.

Since the Bengals just snapped their three-game losing streak with second-year quarterback Jake Browning throwing for 354 yards in his first road start, including a 76-yard touchdown to Ja’Marr Chase, it’s not outlandish to think the Jaguars can win in a pinch with the 30-year-old Beathard.

While he’s just 2-10 in his dozen starts with the San Francisco 49ers, none since 2020, Beathard was plenty respectable in his last game there. He lost a tight battle with the Seattle Seahawks and then quarterback Russell Wilson, 26-23, throwing for 273 yards and a touchdown with a 98.1 rating.

Under brutal circumstances against Cincinnati, he had to come in cold on the Jaguars’ final drive of regulation. He managed to lead a game-tying, 53-yard drive that ended with a McManus 40-yard field goal.

Beathard had the Jaguars in the red zone with 42 seconds left, but got sacked trying to scramble on back-to-back plays and he had to settle for getting his team to overtime.

“To step in there and take over for Trevor in that moment was huge for him,” Allen said of Beathard. “We have a lot of faith in him, but we’re hoping to get 16. … Find out what’s going on with 16, I’m not sure yet.”

Whether it’s confidence in Beathard or trying to stay positive, nobody seems overly concerned about a diminished offense if Beathard has to fill in for any amount of time.

“I joke about it all the time,” said Jones. “A backup quarterback is one of the easiest positions until you’re thrown into the fire. He has to prepare the same amount as Trevor and not get all the reps. That’s the reality of the position he’s in. To come in and get us to overtime, that says a lot about his veteran leadership.”

Still, Pederson understands the game plan will have to be adjusted to some degree if they have to play for one game, two games or whatever without Lawrence.

“Well, that’s something we’ll look at,” said Pederson. “I don’t think we have to change up a whole lot. C.J., you just got to utilize C.J.’s strenths. I don’t want C.J. to be Trevor either. C.J. has got to be C.J. That’s something moving forward, if C.J. plays next week, that’s the game plan, right? You utilize his strength, tailor the offense around that.”

Jaguars report card: Offense looked decent, defense flunks test on Monday Night Football stage

Defense wilted on big stage

Losing Lawrence and enduring a slew of injuries might have been a tad easier to stomach had the Jaguars’ defense performed better on the MNF stage.

Instead, Mike Caldwell’s unit let a 27th-ranked offense and the NFL’s worst running attack gash them for 491 total yards, the most allowed by the Jaguars this season.

Except for another Pro Bowl-type performance by Josh Allen, who had 1.5 sacks and an interception off a weird double pass that led to a touchdown, the defense didn’t do enough to disrupt Browning.

He completed 32 of 37 passes for 354 yards, leading touchdowns on three consecutive possessions and only faced a total of four third downs on those drives.

You would have thought Burrow was still out there the way Browning flummoxed the Jaguars’ defense, especially on passes to three different tight ends.

“Let’s not discredit [Browning],” said Jaguars’ defensive end Dawuane Smoot. “He’s an NFL quarterback and a good player. I feel like they had our number, knew exactly what we were going to do. They were getting the ball to their playmakers as soon as possible.”

Allen didn’t care to dwell too much on injuries to Lawrence and other teammates, only because the Jaguars have a quick turnaround before facing another AFC playoff contender in Cleveland.

“It’s all about how we respond,” said Allen. “You hate losing at home, first and foremost. We have to figure that out.”

What the Jaguars can’t do is let such a devastating setback on multiple levels ruin what has been a pretty successful season. Suddenly, just when the team was primed for another strong homestretch like in 2022, now they’ve got to deal with more than just one loss on the scoreboard.

“The world’s not over after this loss,” said Engram.

Certainly not, but the character of this team will now be tested in ways far different than last year when the Jaguars finished 6-1 and overcame a four-game deficit against the Tennessee Titans to win the AFC South.

In their last Monday Night Football appearance, almost 12 years to the day, the Jaguars were routed 38-14 by the San Diego Chargers and Philip Rivers at EverBank, but that didn’t seem so alarming since they were 3-8 at the time and going nowhere.

Until the exact future playing status of Lawrence, Kirk and others is known, it’s impossible to not have a sense of trepidation about this loss. With all these injuries and uncertain timetables, it's reasonable to think Pederson and his staff will have to be more vigilant in some cases about load management.

The world may not be over, but it certainly feels like the Jaguars’ season could be hanging in the balance.

Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, at @genefrenette 

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Stage fright: Jaguars loss on MNF scarier if Trevor is sidelined too long