Last year when the New England Patriots headed overseas and played a football game against an AFC South team, it was quite possibly one of the worst games of the entire season, let alone in franchise history. Mac Jones was sacked five times in the first half, he threw a bone-headed interception in a crucial part of the game, and New England suffered a miserable and gut-crushing 10-6 defeat.
This season, they will head over to London, a city where they have had better fortune. However, it is also the unofficial second home of the Jacksonville Jaguars, the team that the Patriots just happen to be going up against in Week 7. Normally, New England has had success against this football team, but there is another side that nobody really thinks about. In the postseason, the Patriots and Jaguars have met up against each other five times and have run into each other in at least one of the three stages on the path to the Super Bowl. Two conference championship games, two wild cards, and surprisingly one divisional round meetup. How did all of them pan out? Let’s find out right now.
The Lesser Known Playoff Rivalry of the Pats and Jags
#1: 1996 AFC Championship
Heading into the conference championship game in January of 1997, both teams were having remarkable seasons that no fan wanted to see come to an end. The Jacksonville Jaguars were literally in their second year of existence led by head coach Tom Coughlin, and not only was this their first AFC Championship appearance, but they did so as the fifth seed in the conference. In the Wild Card, they went toe-to-toe with the Buffalo Bills, a team that had made four straight Super Bowl appearances at the beginning of the decade. Thanks to a 175-yard day from running back Natrone Means and a walk-off 45-yard field goal from Mike Hollis, the Jaguars barely squeaked by with a 30-27 victory in the home of the Bills Mafia. One week later, they went up against the number one seed Denver Broncos, with a very hungry John Elway hoping to finally get his first Super Bowl ring. His offense might have had a solid day, but he wasn’t better than Mark Brunell and company. He threw for a couple of touchdown passes, Means had another 140 yards rushing, and Jacksonville overpowered another superior team 30-27 to advance to the conference championship game. One more win and they would be in the Superdome taking on the Green Bay Packers. But they had one more road challenge to get through.
It took a few years, but Bill Parcells finally got the New England Patriots on the right track and led them to having the second-best record in the AFC in 1996. They had more experience and continuity than the Jacksonville Jaguars did that season. Drew Bledsoe showed his first overall pick pedigree with a Pro Bowl season, Curtis Martin and Terry Glenn were the main engines of the second-highest scoring offense in the league, and their defense had many of the nucleus players that would become a huge part of the first iteration of the Patriots dynasty five years later. Names included Willie McGinest, Tedy Bruschi, Ty Law, Lawyer Milloy, and Otis Smith. Even Bill Belichick was the assistant head coach at the time! Because they clinched the second seed, they didn’t play a playoff game until the Divisional Round, where they easily beat down the defending AFC Champion Pittsburgh Steelers 28-3. It wasn’t the best day from Bledsoe individually, but Martin scored three touchdowns, and the Steelers were held to just 213 total yards of offense. Heading into Foxboro Stadium, the Patriots were 7.5-point favorites against the Jacksonville Jaguars, but it wasn’t that huge of a blowout.
Unfortunately, it was not another high-scoring showdown that many were expecting at the time. Instead, it was the defenses that came out to play. Once again, Bledsoe did not have that great of a game as he threw for just 178 yards on twenty completions, and even Martin was held to under 100 yards. Brunell was also held to under 200 passing yards on the same amount of completions, and their two running backs Natrone Means and James Stewart only combined for 83 yards on the ground. In the middle of the fourth quarter, New England led 13-6 but Jacksonville had a chance to tie the game and keep their championship hopes alive. With 8:42 to go, Stewart took the handoff and picked up a solid five yards before Chris Slade came through with a timely forced fumble that got recovered for a Patriots touchdown by Otis Smith. Two plays later with a chance to redeem the offense, Brunell threw a costly interception to Tedy Bruchi that all but sealed the deal. The Patriots won 20-6 and they were on to their second Super Bowl appearance in franchise history, before ultimately suffering a heartbreaking defeat to Brett Favre and the Green Bay Packers 35-21.
#2: 1998 Wild Card
Two years later, the Patriots and Jaguars met up against each other once again, but New England was not the same juggernaut that it was when they went to the Super Bowl. Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick departed to run the New York Jets, which meant that the rest of the coaching staff was set to follow them to MetLife, and now all of the responsibility fell on the shoulders of Pete Carroll. In his first year, they weren’t too bad at 10-6, but their offense got neutralized by the Pittsburgh Steelers in the divisional round 7-6 on the road. In 1998, they had an okay season. Their offense was not spectacular, even though Robert Edwards ran for 1000 yards, and it got worse when Drew Bledsoe suffered a season-ending hand injury just before the playoffs. At least their defense didn’t regress drastically since they still had a good majority of the core in place. Ty Law had a league-leading nine interceptions, Lawyer Milloy wasn’t too far behind with six, but they had a pretty subpar pass rush. The Patriots were at least decent enough to back into the postseason at 9-7 as the sixth seed, but the Jaguars were a lot better than they were a couple of seasons ago.
Their roster didn’t change dramatically and still kept a good amount of their nucleus players. Mark Brunell threw twenty touchdown passes and just nine interceptions in the regular season, second-year running back Fred Taylor emerged onto the scene with over 1200 yards and fourteen touchdowns, and their offense still had the dynamic receiving duo of Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell that was near the top of the league. Their defense wasn’t completely spectacular, but it was opportunistic, and the Jaguars had a strong 11-5 season to clinch the third seed in the AFC playoffs. At home against the team that sent them home two years ago, Jacksonville was ready for vengeance and more later on.
Scott Zolak got the start for the Patriots in this playoff game, and the moment that the ball was snapped, it turned out to be a pretty bad mismatch. Not only did he throw for a measly 190 yards on twenty-one completions, but their best player Robert Edwards was held to just 27 rushing yards for the entire game. Both of them lost two fumbles, Zolak threw an interception on his final pass of the day, and one touchdown in the third quarter was just simply not enough. All the Jaguars offense had to do was just hold onto the football, and fortunately for them, they never gave it up once. That was enough for Fred Taylor to run for 162 yards on a whopping thirty-three carries, and even though it took four field goals from Mike Hollis for Jacksonville to reach twenty-five points, it was more than enough for them to move onto the second round. Unfortunately, they traveled to MetLife Stadium to take on Bill Parcells’ New York Jets in the second round and saw their season once again come to an end. Brunell threw three interceptions, they gave up close to 125 yards from Curtis Martin, and the Jaguars got outclassed 34-24. If it is any solace for the Patriots or the Jaguars, New York lost in the AFC Championship to the eventual champion Denver Broncos.
#3: 2005 Wild Card
By the time the Patriots and Jaguars met each other in the playoffs again, both of them were heading in completely different directions. Even though most NFL fans know what happened to the Patriots, it’s better to put in the context than head into this matchup without it at all. A year after the Jaguars got their revenge in the Wild Card, Pete Carroll was fired and the Patriots hired back Bill Belichick to take full control of team operations in 2000. They went 5-11 in his first year and after Drew Bledsoe got injured in the second game of the 2001 season, it looked like the Patriots were going to have another lost season. But the minute that sixth-round quarterback Tom Brady took the field, nobody expected what was to come next. Combining an efficient offense with a relentless defense, New England won three of the next four Super Bowl championships and cemented themselves as the next dynasty of the National Football League. Heading into the 2005 Wild Card, they might not have been the most dominant team in the league, but they still won the AFC East and had a solid 10-6 season, clinching the fourth seed in the playoff race.
The Jaguars, on the other hand, were certainly not even close to reaching that point in their history. Before the 2005 season, their last playoff appearance was in January of 2000, when they steam-rolled their way to the AFC Championship after sending Dan Marino to retirement with a 62-7 demolition against the Miami Dolphins. It was the best season that Jacksonville had, going 14-2 in the regular season with the best record in the league, and maybe this would finally be the year that they reached the Super Bowl. Unfortunately, they got outplayed once again, this time against their division rival Tennessee Titans. After that, the Jaguars were never the same again.
They went through a five-year playoff drought, Tom Coughlin got fired before the 2003 season, but they turned it around under Jack Del Rio in 2005. The offense might not have been the powerhouse it was in the nineties, but it was still decent with third-year quarterback Byron Leftwich, and they still had Fred Taylor and Jimmy Smith playing at a really high level. Their defense was the biggest strength of the team, however, and it was because of the mentality that Del Rio brought over from his days with the Baltimore Ravens as the linebackers coach. Their secondary ranked in the top ten in interceptions, they gave up the fewest rushing touchdowns in the league, and they gave up the sixth-fewest points out of everybody else. The Jaguars might not have been the most feared Wild Card team, but they were still respectable as the fifth seed. They might not have been able to beat the Patriots, but many thought that they could make it close. Unfortunately, they did not do that for a second.
From start to finish in Gillette Stadium, it was an utter rout and mismatch given by a vastly superior football team. Tom Brady threw three touchdown passes and no interceptions, Kevin Faulk and Corey Dillon combined for over 90 rushing yards, but it wasn’t even that exciting of a performance from the Patriots offense. Yes, they were efficient and balanced, but the biggest reason why they won was because of how suffocating their defense was that night. Fred Taylor could only run for 27 yards, Jimmy Smith caught just three patches, and Asante Samuel wrapped it up with a pick-six that put New England up 28-3. The biggest star of the game was linebacker Willie McGinest, who made history with 4.5 sacks, the only player to have that many in a playoff performance. The more that the Jaguars offense stalled out, the more exhausted their defense became, and New England eventually put them away down the stretch. After that, many expected that the Patriots were going to be the first team to win three Super Bowls in a row, but that was not the case. In their first road playoff game since that 1998 Wild Card against the Jaguars, New England got blown out by the Denver Broncos in the divisional round 27-13, the first-ever playoff defeat for Tom Brady, and it definitely was not his last.
#4: 2007 Divisional Round
Two years later, the Patriots and Jaguars would once again meet up with each other in the playoffs, but this would be the first in the second round. When they saw each other in the 2005 Wild Card, New England was seen as the vastly superior team, while Jacksonville was looked at as a team that just did not have enough. Two seasons later, the narrative was still the same but three times more challenging. Why is that? Well because for the first time in thirty-five years, the New England Patriots had a perfect regular season at 16-0 and were hands down the most dominant team in football. Tom Brady won his first MVP with fifty touchdown passes, Randy Moss had a league-record twenty-three touchdown receptions, they had the best offense in the history of the league, and their defense gave up the fourth fewest points. Obviously, the Patriots had a first-round bye, which meant they had a week to see who their first playoff game would be, and even they thought they would be welcoming back the Pittsburgh Steelers. However, a scrappy team in Florida had different plans.
After an underachieving 8-8 season in 2006, the Jaguars knew that it was unacceptable and it was on them to make sure that they got back to the playoffs and make their fans in Duval County proud. David Garrard got the full confidence of Jack Del Rio and the team to be the starting quarterback. Even if they weren’t good enough to overthrow Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts to win the AFC South, the Jaguars were still a strong team in 2007. They had an outstanding running back tandem of Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew, Garrard had a 6:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio, and their defense was responsible for giving up the tenth fewest points and coming up with the fourth most interceptions. They showed just how dangerous they were on the road against the Pittsburgh Steelers, where they sacked Ben Roethlisberger six times and picked him off three times, while also giving up under 40 rushing yards for the entire game. They were up 28-10 in the middle of the third quarter and it looked like Jacksonville was going to steam-roll their way to the second round.
However, the offense quickly fell flat and the defense started to completely collapse at the worst possible moment. The Steelers scored nineteen unanswered points to take a one-point lead with plenty of time left in the fourth, but fortunately, their offense stalled out on the final drive, which meant that Garrard had one last chance to lead his team to victory. On fourth and two at the Pittsburgh 42-yard line, he took a quarterback draw up the middle and ran for 32 yards to get the Jaguars into field goal range, setting up the go-ahead kick from Josh Scobee to take a 31-29 lead. All the defense had to do was just get one more stop with little time on the clock, and Bobby McCray got it done with a game-sealing strip-sack to send them to Gillette Stadium. Even though the Patriots were going to be considered the better team, it wasn’t going to be the blowout that many fans expected.
In the first half, both offenses went back and forth with each other, scoring a couple of touchdowns and putting each other’s defenses on their heels. Each was balanced and methodical in their approach, which is why both the Patriots and Jaguars headed into their locker rooms tied at fourteen heading into halftime. Heading into the third quarter, it didn’t come down to which quarterback was going to get the ball last, but which defense would come out with a tougher mindset. Between Bill Belichick and Jack Del Rio, the answer was pretty clear. While the Patriots continued to not skip a beat, the Jaguars were held to just two field goals and could not get into the end zone for the rest of the game. Tom Brady had one of the most underrated but signature performances of his playoff career, throwing just two incompletions and three touchdown passes in a game where Randy Moss was only targeted once. Laurence Maroney chipped in with 122 rushing yards in a career-defining performance from him, and Rodney Harrison all but sealed the deal on Jacksonville’s final drive of the night with a fourth-down interception. The Patriots once again overpowered the Jaguars 31-20, but they didn’t have the perfect season that the Miami Dolphins had in 1972. After doing enough to beat the San Diego Chargers in the AFC Championship, they ran into the biggest trap game of their lives in the Super Bowl against the New York Giants. Even though they had a fourth-quarter lead, the offense was completely punked by the likes of Michael Strahan and Justin Tuck, scoring just fourteen points for the rest of the game. The defense did whatever they could, but they wore down in the fourth quarter and gave up two late touchdowns and the most impossible catch in NFL History from David Tyree to lose their only game of the season 17-14.
#5: 2017 AFC Championship
By January of 2018, the Patriots continued to rise high and torment teams across the entire league, while the Jaguars fell into the pit of being one of the biggest jokes in all of football. From 2008 to 2016, Jacksonville had just one season where they won more than five games. They went through four head coaches and seven different starting quarterbacks. Nobody thought that in 2017, the Jacksonville Jaguars were going to even have a winning season, let alone try to take down the New England Patriots in the conference championship game. But thanks to a revitalized defense that coined the nickname “Sacksonville,” thanks to their dominant pass rush and unstoppable secondary, the Jaguars won the AFC South at 10-6 and clinched the fourth seed in the AFC.
Their offense was brought back to life by rookie running back Leonard Fournette, the centerpiece of the league’s best rushing attack that also assisted the Jaguars into scoring the fifth most points in the league, a formula that made Blake Bortles look like a competent quarterback. Heading into the playoffs, Jacksonville was no longer the solid to average football team that was expected to get exposed by a better team. Instead, they were seen as the biggest threat to the top two seeds in the AFC: the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers. Handling their business at home against the Buffalo Bills in the Wild Card 10-3, they headed up to Heinz Field for the second time that year. Previously in the fifth week of that season, their defense picked off Ben Roethlisberger five times in a dominating 30-9 victory, and were hoping to at least beat the Steelers at their own game once again. In the first half, the Jaguars literally picked up where they left off. Their offense was unstoppable, their defense came up with two huge takeaways, and they were up 28-14 by the break. Even though their defense had a hard time shutting down a highly potent Pittsburgh offense for the rest of the game, Fournette scored three touchdowns and Bortles did not turn the ball over once. Any time the Steelers tried to catch up, the Jaguars just kept putting it out of reach, and they left Pittsburgh with a 45-42 win. Now it was on to Gillette Stadium once again, and this time, they weren’t going to end that game without a fight.
Heading into that AFC Championship game, it was the seventh straight time that the Patriots had a chance to reach the Super Bowl, and this year was the chance for New England to go for their sixth title. Tom Brady won his third league MVP, their offense scored the second most points in the league, and their defense allowed just the fifth-fewest points out of everybody else. They predictably won the first seed in the AFC and blew out the Tennessee Titans in the divisional round, but even New England knew that the Jacksonville Jaguars were not going to be a cakewalk.
Through the first forty-five minutes of play, the Jaguars were doing everything that a team should do to beat the New England Patriots. Their offense was balanced and too fast for their opposition to keep up with, and Tom Brady was held to just ten points by the time the fourth quarter began. What made this worse was that not only did Rob Gronkowski suffer a concussion that knocked him out for the rest of the game, but Brady was playing with twelve stitches in his throwing hand after slamming it on a teammate’s helmet in practice that week, so the degree of difficulty was at an all-time high. Trailing 20-10 in the fourth quarter, it was going to be considered a miracle for the Patriots to come back and win, but that was when everybody realized that their quarterback was still Tom Brady. One drive after Dion Lewis lost a fumble thanks to Myles Jack, the Patriots marched their way down the field and finally got back on the board thanks to a few momentum-swinging plays. On third and eighteen at his own 25-yard line, Brady evaded the pocket and slung a rocket to Danny Amendola in the middle of the field to give the Patriots a new set of downs.
One play later, he threw it deep down the sideline to Phillip Dorsett, and he made an impressive catch to get New England back into the red zone. The drive was topped off with a seven-yard crossing touchdown to Amendola that trailed the deficit to three. On the next two possessions, the Patriots’ defense held Jacksonville out of scoring range and forced them to punt the ball back to Brady, which cost them in the end. It all started with a huge punt return from Amendola that allowed New England to start their drive at the Jacksonville 30-yard line, plenty of room for them to at least tie the game. They ended up going for the win. On second and goal at the four-yard line, Brady threw it to the back of the end zone for Amendola once again, and the playoff legend kept both of his feet down in the back of the end zone to give the Patriots the lead!
However, Blake Bortles had plenty of time to win his team the game, so it was far from over. A 29-yard completion to Dede Westbrook got the Jaguars into field goal range, but that was when everything fell apart. Two plays later, Bortles took a costly sack from Kyle Van Noy that set them back further, and now their hopes came down to a fourth and fifteen at the New England 43-yard line. Stepping up in the pocket, Bortles launched a rocket down the right sideline for Dede Westbrook, but the ball got knocked down by Stephon Gilmore and the Patriots got the ball back. Dion Lewis forced the Jaguars to burn all three of their timeouts, and he got the first down that allowed the clock to run out. Once again, Jacksonville came up short against the Evil Empire of the league 24-20.
Even though the Patriots lost the Super Bowl to the Philadelphia Eagles 41-33, they would end up getting their sixth championship the following year against the Los Angeles Rams 13-3. As for Jacksonville, everything started to disassemble. By 2022, nobody from that Sacksonville team was on the roster or coaching staff. Bortles was released in 2018, Jalen Ramsey was traded in 2019, and Doug Marrone was fired in 2020. The Jaguars at least made it back to the playoffs under Doug Marrone and Trevor Lawrence in January of 2023, but they have still not made it back to the AFC Championship and their Super Bowl drought lives on in July of 2024.
