Jaguars history changed for the worse, then the better since Kansas City last came to town

It was a sunny late-summer Sunday at EverBank Stadium and Jacksonville Jaguars fans were fairly bursting with optimism about a championship season they knew in their hearts was coming.

Much like this coming Sunday promises to be.

Jags fans had the quarterback they wanted and a playoff season two years before was still fresh in their memories. The Kansas City Chiefs were in town and favored by a handful of points but they were in The Bank and the game was seen as an opportunity, not a daunting challenge.

Much like this coming Sunday promises to be.

All that remains is to write a much different script.

When the Jaguars (1-0) play host to the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs (0-1) at 1 p.m. on Sunday (CBS-47) it will have been four years and one week since the last time Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones and company visited EverBank Stadium.

That’s not an overly long time but it seems as if the Jaguars have packed a decade’s worth of trials, tribulations and some measure of success into the last 48 months, 208 weeks and 1,468 days.

"It's pretty crazy," said safety Andrew Wingard, one of six players on that 2019 team who remain with the Jaguars, along with outside linebacker Josh Allen, punter Logan Cooke, defensive end Dawuane Smoot, offensive guard Tyler Shatley and cornerback Tre Herndon. "Weird ... that's the crazy part of the NFL."

Over that span the Jags have had four coaches (counting interim coach Darrell Bevell) who combined for a 21-48 record, started five quarterbacks, had the No. 1 overall draft pick twice but have gone from the laughingstock of the NFL during 2020 and into the failed Urban Meyer debacle to a serious team in serious contention under coach Doug Pederson and quarterback Trevor Lawrence following last year’s AFC South championship and last week’s 31-21 victory at Indianapolis on opening day.

The Jaguars have also rebounded from the defeat of the Lot J proposal in 2021 to build the $120 million Miller Electric Center and unveil a $2 billion plan to renovate EverBank Stadium and develop the surrounding land.

The Jags went a combined 10-39 in 2019-2021. Since Pederson arrived, they're 11-9, counting last year's playoffs.

Cooke agreed that the current four-year period has been bookended with much the same level of optimism for the coming season, with one notable difference — the Jaguars are coming off a playoff season, while in 2019 whey were a year removed from a 5-11 record that was a dismal follow-up hit to the team that was 10 minutes from the Super Bowl in 2017.

"There are a lot more expectations now, just because you're coming off the playoffs," he said.

Allen likes the idea that the Jags are facing the Chiefs early.

"Playing these meaningful games early means a lot, and while we’re all fresh and ready to go," he said. "We've got to take advantage of this and get on these guys.”

An eventful four years

The 2019 season began with every reason to think 2018 was just a blip.

The main reason is that Jaguars’ owner Shad Khan opened up the checkbook and signed quarterback Nick Foles in free agency. Foles, a seven-year veteran at the time, was the Super Bowl MVP two seasons before – under Pederson when Philadelphia beat New England 41-33 — having come off the bench to go 5-1 at the end of the regular season and the playoffs when starter Carson Wentz was injured.

Foles had a 4-1 record as a starter the following season but the Eagles were banking their future on Wentz and Foles went on the open market. The Jaguars won the bidding war for $88 million for four years — more than $51 million guaranteed.

Foles wasn’t all the 2019 Jags had. Leonard Fournette was running hard again and was resembling the 1,000-yard back he had been as a rookie in 2017. The wide receiver room seemed solid with Dede Westbrook, D.J. Chark and Keelan Cole and the defense still had many of the starters from the 2017 playoff run, including linemen Calais Campbell, Yannick Ngakoue and first-round rookie Josh Allen, linebacker Myles Jack and All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey.

Coach Doug Marrone was given another chance by Khan after the team stumbled in 2018. The Jags cut ties with turnover-prone quarterback Blake Bortles and Foles was commanding respect in the locker room and the practice field.

"Nick had obviously proven himself in Philadelphia and was a great locker room guy," Cooke said. "There was a lot of excitement because we knew we had a guy."

Then Chris Jones bull-rushed Jaguars right guard A.J. Cann and an entire season changed with one play.

Ten plays, then disaster

The Jaguars went three-and-out on the first offensive possession of the Foles Era and by the time they got the ball back again, the Chiefs led 10-0.  But Foles led the Jags into Chiefs territory and on third-and-eight got Chark in single coverage against Kendall Fuller.

Jones pushed Cann aside and was coming hard in Foles’ face. Frank Clark was closing in from the left. But Foles, the veteran, hung in there until the last second and fired a pass into a tight window, which Chark snagged for the touchdown.

The stadium exploded. There it is — fans told themselves. That's why we got this Foles guy.

But Foles wasn’t getting up. Jones landed on him with the full force of his 300 pounds and snapped Foles' left collarbone.

The noise level went from ear-splitting to silent as Foles was helped to the sideline. Warming up was Gardner Minshew, a sixth-round draft pick who had been in four college programs before landing at Washington State.

"It was a dagger to us on the sidelines," Cooke said.

But if Cooke wasn't in enough of a state of shock at that point, he went to another level when equipment manager George Pellicer came up to him with a helmet. Stuck to the back was a green dot, signifying that it was a quarterback helmet and Pellicer had been ordered to take it to Cooke, the emergency quarterback that day, and make sure the communications inside were working.

"It sounded really cool to tell myself I was the emergency quarterback ... until George brought me that helmet," Cooke said. "I was on pins and needles the rest of the game. I was watching offensive plays closer than I used to."

Minshew Mania didn’t last long

Under the circumstances, Minshew gave the Jaguars everything he had — that day and for the next two years.

Mahomes answered Foles’ TD pass with a 49-yard strike to Sammy Watkins and despite Minshew’s best efforts (22 of 25, 275 yards) the Jags never got the ball with a chance to cut the Chiefs’ lead to less than seven points. Kansas City went on to win 40-26 and the Jaguars were faced with a season in which an obscure rookie would have to lead the offense.

Wingard looked on with pride from the sidelines. Minshew was his best friend on the team and the two were roommates.

"When you lose a guy you've signed for [$88 million] a few plays into the season, yeah, you're in shock," said Wingard. "But my roomie was balling out."

Minshew nearly brought the Jags back to a victory in a 13-12 loss the next week at Houston. He finally put some victories on the board against Tennessee, Denver, Cincinnati and the New York Jets, On the way, Minshew captured the imagination and hearts of Jags’ fans who identified with the brash, mustachioed Mississippi native who was short on arm strength but long on guts.

But elsewhere on the team, things were getting messy.

As the Jalen World Turns

Ramsey had been unhappy since the Jaguars had picked up his fifth-year option before the season started. He showed up to training camp in an armored truck, carrying bags of fake money and with a comedian extolling his virtues as an All-Pro shutdown corner — which he was.

It was clear the Jaguars were going to deal with his contract after the season but it never got to that point.

During the 13-12 loss to Houston, Ramsey yelled at Marrone on the sideline for not throwing the replay flag on a borderline play. After the game, Ramsey claims he was spoken to “in a disrespectful” way by former general manager Dave Caldwell during a meeting that also included executive vice-president Tom Coughlin, Khan and his son Tony Khan.

Ramsey demanded a trade the next day. He played one more game for the Jaguars, with eight tackles and a forced fumble in a 20-7 victory over the Titans, then claimed he had a back injury and never played for the Jags again. On Oct. 16 he was traded to the Los Angeles Rams for first-round draft picks in 2020 and 2021 and a fourth-rounder in 2021.

Foles returns, then benched

Minshew led the Jaguars to a 4-4 record but he had a terrible game in a 26-3 loss to the Texans in London and Marrone turned back to Foles, who was off the injury list.

That lasted two games and one half. Foles threw two interceptions, was sacked eight times, had a passer rating of 78.96 and the Jaguars lost the next three games.

Minshew came in at halftime against Tampa Bay but most of his early-season magic was gone and the Jaguars won only two more games — oddly enough, the final game played in Oakland Alameda Coliseum when Minshew led two late scoring drives in a 20-16 victory over the Raiders and a 38-20 rout of Indianapolis to close the season.

The drama wasn’t over.

Three days after the victory over Oakland, Khan fired Coughlin following a letter from the NLF Players Association to its members, stating that one-fourth of the total grievances filed by players against management came from the Jaguars. The letter also urged players to “consider this” if they were entertaining free-agency offers from the Jaguars.

Somehow, Marrone and Caldwell survived another season.

There was some early doubt the season would come off. The COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation in the spring and sports shut down for weeks. But the NFL developed a player safety plan, stadium capacity was restricted to 25 percent (half the teams didn’t allow any fans at all) and the season began on time.

It started well enough for the Jaguars as Minshew threw only one incomplete pass, rookie James Robinson emerged as a force in the ground game and the Jags beat the Colts 27-20.

It all went downhill from there. Kicker Josh Lambo was injured. Minshew hurt his thumb, hid the injury and got on Marrone’s naughty list. Jake Luton and Mike Glennon played to no great degree of effectiveness and the team finished 1-15, ensuring the No. 1 overall draft pick: Trevor Lawrence.

The good that came from 2019

Marrone was fired after the 2020 season, Meyer was hired but the Jaguars were dysfunctional again in 2021, thanks to Meyer’s incompetence. He was fired after only 13 games.

But like the 2020 record led to the opportunity to draft Lawrence, the generational quarterback the team had been seeking, Khan’s Meyer experiment, disastrous as it was, led to the more thoughtful, safer decision to hire Pederson, who oozes NFL professionalism from every pore.

"I never thought we were as terrible as the record showed, in either 2020 or 2021," Wingard said. "We were in a lot of games. But the coaching and the players weren't meshing. The culture and energy weren't there like it's been with Doug."

The divorce with Ramsey was perhaps inevitable. The first No. 1 pick the Jags received from the Rams went for K’Lavon Chaisson, and that jury remains out. But the second No. 1 pick was used to snatch Travis Etienne in 2021 and after he missed his rookie season with a Linsfranc injury, he was a key cog in the Jaguars’ playoff run with a 1,000-yard season last year.

The Jaguars have played the Chiefs twice since then, both times in 2022 and both times on the road. They lost 27-17 during the regular season and 27-20 during the playoffs and were in each game in the second half. Sunday’s game will be the third meeting in 305 days and a victory by the Jags would signal their arrival as a serious Super Bowl contender.

Lawrence said those two losses, fresh in everyone's memory, offer perspective on the task at hand.

"We’re just trying to go 1-0 this week," he said. "That’s all you can do. You can’t go any further. Then, we’re going to have 15 more after that. Don’t make it bigger than it is, but it is a big game. It’s an AFC game, it’s Kansas City coming into our place."

Pederson loves confidence. But he also cautioned that Sunday is one week out of 17.

"It's early ... it’s Week 2," he said. "A lot of football ahead. Obviously, it would be a great win for us, but quite frankly, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish. For us, yes, it would be a great opportunity to pull one out, and a little bit of a benchmark to where we are as a football team."

So on Sunday morning, optimism will be in the air again, in the stadium and in the locker room. The opportunity is there for the taking.

Someone just needs to block Chris Jones.

Since Kansas City last played at Jacksonville ...

Jaguars headlines

• The team fired coach Doug Marrone, hired Urban Meyer, fired Meyer and hired Doug Pederson.

• The Lot J proposal was defeated, the Miller Electric Center was completed and the EverBank Stadium renovation plan was unveiled.

• Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, Travon Walker, Tyson Campell, Andre Cisco and Devin Lloyd were drafted.

• Calvin Ridley, Christian Kirk, Evan Engram, Zay Jones, Foye Oluokun, Rayshawn Jenkins, Foley Fatukasi and Jamal Agnew were obtained in trades or free agency.

• The Jaguars won their last five games to capture the 2022 AFC South championship and won a playoff game against the Los Angeles Charges in a historic comeback from a 27-0 deficit.

City of Jacksonville headlines

• The JEA scandal broke, resulting in federal indictments.

• The city weathered the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Law enforcement officials have battled to contain high murder rates.

• The George Floyd killing sparked racial justice protest marches and demonstrations -- one of which was led by the Jaguars.

• Donna Deegan became the first female mayor elected in Jacksonville.

Other sports headlines

• Georgia has won two football national championships.

• Caeleb Dressel of Green Cove Springs won five gold medals at the 2021 Olympics.

• Kansas City has won two Super Bowls in four years.

• The PGA Tour and LIV Golf battled over money and star players.

• Four teams have won the last four World Series, including the Atlanta Braves in 2021.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: When Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs last visited Jacksonville, optimism reigned