Jaguars Up-Down drill: Thumbs up for stingy defense, thumbs down for inconsistent offense

Looking at the good, the bad and the ugly from the Jaguars’ 20-10 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Up: Jaguars on fire

After Week 3 of the NFL season, the Jaguars were tied for the ninth-best record in the AFC at 1-2 after a humiliating 37-17 home loss to the Houston Texans.

Five straight wins later and they’ve soared to the top of AFC with a 6-2 mark that has them as co-leaders with the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins.

Granted, the Chiefs own the tiebreaker over the Jaguars by virtue of their Week 2 win at EverBank Stadium and the Dolphins also have a better record in conference play at 4-1. But in terms of momentum, the Jaguars are the NFL’s hottest team.

Down: Inconsistent offense

The Jaguars can’t expect to keep winning by leaving tons of points on the board. The first half against Pittsburgh was an abomination as the offense managed just three field goals despite two drives reaching the Steelers’ 32, plus the 18, 6 and 20-yard lines.

Two red-zone turnovers — one on a Trevor Lawrence interception and the other on an Evan Engram fumble after taking a shovel pass into the middle of the line — will lose a team most games.

Jaguars report card: Defense close to lights-out showing, offense wasted good field position

Up: Stingy defense

The Jaguars made sure the team’s offensive shortcomings didn’t turn into a heartbreaking loss because their defense never let Pittsburgh’s offense get any traction. They held an opponent to their lowest yardage output (261 yards) of the season and didn’t allow the Steelers to get a first down until the fifth possession.

Pittsburgh only converted 3 of 14 chances on third or fourth down.

Down: P.I. streak broken

For the first time this season, the Jaguars were penalized for defensive pass interference when linebacker Foye Oluokun made contact with receiver Calvin Austin, drawing the flag on a deep pass over the middle. It cost the Jaguars 32 yards and led to the Steelers’ first score, a 22-yard Chris Boswell field goal.

The Jaguars had been the only NFL team without an enforced defensive P.I. call against them all season.

Up: Secondary holds up

Despite the absence of cornerback Tyson Campbell and safety Andre Cisco, the attrition didn’t seem to bother the secondary too much.

Andrew Wingard, filling in for Cisco, had a knockout performance with several open-field tackles and a fourth-quarter interception that led to a game-sealing field goal.

Steelers quarterbacks Kenny Pickett and backup Mitch Trubisky only completed two passes longer than 14 yards.

Gene Frenette: Jaguars winning without crisp offense shows they're legit Super Bowl contenders

Down: Blaming the officials

Another Steelers receiver, Diontae Johnson, had a tirade after the game over the officiating, saying the Alan Eck crew favored the Jaguars and suggested at one point they were paid to do so.

He was particularly miffed about a neutral-zone infraction against an unidentified Pittsburgh lineman that took away a Steelers field goal to end the first half and the way pass interference calls were made.

“They was calling some stupid stuff,” said Johnson. “They should get fined for calling bad, making worse, terrible calls and stuff like that. That’s how pissed I am. I don’t care what nobody say. They cost us the game.”

The officiating crew won’t get fined, but Johnson can count on the NFL reducing the size of his paycheck for such a bold criticism of the officials.

Each team was penalized six times, the Jaguars for 72 yards and the Steelers for 52 yards.

Up: Pickens comeuppance

Pittsburgh Steelers receiver George Pickens created quite the stir three days before the game by saying the Jaguars were overly reliant on their defensive line.

“They kind of hope, hope the guys [on the D-line] hold up long enough, so it’s kinda a ‘hope defense’ for sure,” said Pickens.

Well, that "hope defense" held Pickens to just one catch, albeit it went for a 22-yard touchdown when the Pittsburgh receiver hurdled over Wingard and broke free of a Montaric Brown tackle to get to the end zone.

Otherwise, Pickens was shut out the rest of the day.

Up: First-half MVP

Offensive struggles aside, the Jaguars continue to get big-time production from running back Travis Etienne, who put up 149 yards from scrimmage with 79 yards rushing and 70 yards receiving. His most important touch came on a 56-yard TD catch down the right sideline.

Etienne is now up to 849 combined yards on the season on 178 touches (151 rushes, 27 catches), well ahead of last year’s pace when he finished with 1,441 yards on 255 touches.

It’ll be interesting to see if head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Press Taylor find a way to lighten his workload as the season progresses.

Etienne has been the Jaguars’ MVP of the first half of the year. Backups Tank Bigsby and D’Ernest Johnson have only 32 carries between them.

Up: Last-second reach

Among the reasons Pickens was limited to one catch was the continued stellar play of Jaguars cornerback Darious Williams, who made up for Pickens beating him on a deep pass by leaping up to barely tip the ball before it could get into the hands of the Steelers’ receiver.

The ball ricocheted off Pickens’ helmet and fell incomplete to force another three-and-out on Pittsburgh’s third possession.

Down: Trickery backfired

The Jaguars drove to a first down at the Steelers’ 18 on their third series, only to have the drive killed when Pederson and Taylor outsmarted themselves by trying a shovel pass to Engram. He was met by big-hitting linebacker Kwon Alexander, who forced a fumble that was recovered by fellow linebacker Cole Holcomb.

Up: Welcome respite

After playing four games in a 21-day span, the Jaguars get a timely bye week and will play only one game in a 20-day period. It should help some healing Jaguars like Tyson Campbell, Andre Cisco and receiver Zay Jones get back on the field to get them ready for the second-half stretch.

The Jaguars, who beat the Baltimore Ravens coming out of the bye week last year, will next play Nov. 12 at home against the San Francisco 49ers, who have lost three straight games after a 5-0 start.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Defense, Etienne among big ups from Jaguars' 20-10 victory over Steelers