The Jaguars almost blew it, but the Colts blew it first

The Jaguars secured their first win of the season in London, a 30–27 nail-biter against the Colts.

If you didn’t wake up to watch the early game today, the Colts and Jaguars played the most AFC South game of all time Sunday morning in London. Both teams played uninspiring football for most of the game, with one of them (the Jags) taking a lead almost by default. Then the losing team (the Colts) unleashed a furious comeback that somehow made the end of the game way more interesting than it deserved to be. (Jacksonville ultimately won 30–27, but that really doesn’t matter.)

The Colts and Jags both seemed to be operating at peak Colts and Jags capacity Sunday—that is, Andrew Luck was all set to record a come-from-behind win while Jacksonville was about to blow its third game of the season. But Luck and the Colts bailed out the Jags by blowing the game themselves.

Let's actually start late in the fourth quarter with the Jaguars, who in an attempt to run out the clock, uncorked a three-play, 18-second drive that set up the Colts with the ball, two timeouts and over two minutes left on the clock to finish their seemingly inevitable comeback. It was the kind of drive that showed you how exactly Jacksonville let two wins slip out of its hands against the Packers and Ravens earlier this season. 

Taking over after the Jags’ embarrassing display of four-minute offense, it was hard to imagine the Colts doing anything else besides marching down the field for a relatively easy game-winning score. Then you remembered why the Colts perennially fall short despite having who is supposed to be one of the best quarterbacks in the league. Facing a fourth-and-one early in the drive, Luck threw incomplete to Dwayne Allen to seriously deflate any comeback attempt.

Why wasn’t Frank Gore in the game? Why did the Colts line up in the shotgun? Why didn’t Luck run into the wide open field in front of him instead of passing? Why didn’t the Colts just run a sneak for what was really just a half-yard? Instead of simply picking up the first down, the Colts elected to go with the play every impatient Madden player chooses to a hilariously disastrous result.

The Colts and Jaguars are now both 1–3, while the Titans and Texans haven't exactly inspired much confidence this season as well. This division should play all its games in London.