It has been hard enough for the Jacksonville Jaguars to win any game in the NFL during the past three and a half years, so perhaps the biggest surprise was not that they let a big lead slip but that they found the resilience to rally and clinch a thrilling 34-31 victory over the Buffalo Bills.
It brought the Jaguars, who last week agreed a deal ensuring they play a regular season game in London until 2020, a second win of the season – and only their 11th since the start of the 2012 season. No wonder their coach, Gus Bradley, was jubilant, saying: “We have been in this situation before but on the sidelines the players were saying: ‘We’re not going to give this one up.’ Our players will take this and grow from it.”
Neither the Jaguars nor Bills are any great shakes but a crowd of 84,021 was deeply enthralled by a minor classic of a match, which vigorously seesawed before a frantic finale.
There was no hint of what was to follow after a simmering first quarter which Buffalo led 3-0 with a 31-yard Dan Carpenter field goal. But in six chaotic minutes the Jaguars put together 27 unanswered points – although they were helped by the Buffalo quarterback EJ Manuel, who gave up three turnovers in 146 seconds.
The Jaguars’ scoring started when their quarterback Blake Bortles found Tony Washington for a 10-yard touchdown to put his side up 7-3. Then Manuel took over.
First he fumbled the ball to allow the defensive end Chris Clemons to run the ball in from six yards. That was the Jaguars’ first defensive touchdown of the season but moments later they had another as Manuel was picked off by Telvin Smith, who ran it back in from 26 yards. To further compound Manuel’s misery, he was intercepted again by Clemons. Coming into this game there had been 141 rushing touchdowns in the first six weeks of the NFL season, and the Jaguars had not scored a single one. But the impressive TJ Yeldon, who ran for 115 yards, fixed that by going over from 26 yards to make it 27-3.
The Bills had a mountain to climb and Manuel, who was deputising for their injured regular quarterback Tyrod Taylor, hardly appeared the man to do it. But the Bills had no other option: they had traded their other backup, Matt Cassel, to the Dallas Cowboys last month. Still, Manuel recovered his composure and found Eric Wood in the end zone as the Bills cut the deficit to 27-13 at half-time.
Buffalo also scored a field goal in the third quarter although they were still 11 points behind with 15 minutes remaining. But Jacksonville are a team who have found countless ways to lose in the past four seasons. And it seemed they were going to blunder again as Buffalo came at them in the final quarter.
The Bills looked to have blown a huge chance when their running back LeSean McCoy fumbled inches from a touchdown score. But the Jaguars offered little on offense and the Bills soon had the ball back. With 6:41 remaining they finally made it pay as Manuel went deep to find Marcus Easley with a 58-yard touchdown to reduce the lead to 27-24.
A minute later the game flip-flopped as Bortles threw an interception to Corey Graham, who ran it back 44 yards for a touchdown. Yet there was still time for Bortles to redeem himself and he calmly took the ball down the field before finding Allen Hurns, who made a flying catch to clinch victory.
“We struggled on offense but to have a big lead, give it up and to come back was huge,” Bortles said. “It speaks about the personality of the team. But we have to keep the foot on the pedal.”
Smith could not stop beaming. “The locker room is electric,” he said. “You can’t even see Gus’s eyes because he is smiling so much.”
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