Inside AFC South: Which Players Are Surging For the Jaguars?

With just three games left in the 2020 season, the entirety of the NFL is either gearing up for a playoff push or attempting to wrap up a disappointing season.

Now that there are just three weeks left in the season, which players in the AFC South are playing their best ball in the final weeks and are surging down the stretch? We break it down here.

Jacksonville Jaguars

It is tough to say any players are truly "surging" for a team that is 1-12 and hasn't won a game since Sept. 13. But the Jaguars do have a pair of front 7 defenders who are playing their best ball of the year in the season's closing weeks.

Defensive end K'Lavon Chaisson was drafted No. 20 overall in April, instantly creating high expectations for the young and raw pass-rusher. Chaisson's rawness and relative inexperience were clear for much of the 2020 season, though, which maybe should've been expected all along. Through the first 11 games of the season, Chaisson recorded one sack and 10 pressures. More often than not, he wasn't impacting opposing passing attacks in really any facet.

But the flip has been switched in the last two weeks. Chaisson has recorded 8 pressures over the last two games, including 3 quarterback hits in Week 13. Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone called his Week 12 performance against the Vikings his best game to date, as well. He hasn't recorded another sack, but he is beating offensive tackles and disrupting the quarterback far more often.

Meanwhile, second-year linebacker Joe Giles-Harris has become an impact player at strong side linebacker in that same span. Stepping in for an injured Kamalei Correa in Week 12, Giles-Harris recorded four quarterback hits and was a constant thorn in the side of the Vikings' offense. He followed this up in Week 13, collecting a sack, a tackle for loss, and another quarterback hit.

Jacksonville hasn't had a lot of things go their way in 2020, but Chaisson and Giles-Harris have quietly grown into playmakers the Jaguars can begin to rely on.

-- John Shipley, JaguarReport

Tennessee Titans

It would be unfair to say Corey Davis was on his way to being a bust.

He led the Titans in receiving in 2018, his second year in the NFL, although his numbers were not exactly eye-popping (65 receptions, 891 yards and 4 TDs). For his first three seasons, he averaged a little more than 47 receptions and 622 yards and had six touchdown catches.

Not bad. But not exactly what you want from the fifth overall pick – and the first wide receiver taken – in the 2017 NFL Draft. Coaches often went out of their way to say what a difference-maker he was as a blocker in the run game, which usually felt like faint praise.

None of it was enough to convince Tennessee to pick up the fifth-year option on his contract.

This year, particularly of late, Davis has been a different guy. Through 13 games, he leads the Titans with 56 receptions and is second with 835 yards. His catch percentage, 76.7, is tops among Titans players with 12 or more receptions and is well above his career percentage, 62.1.

He has two 100-yard games in the last four weeks and has averaged nearly 100 yards per game over that span (99.8, to be exact). That surge started on Nov. 11, a day after his older brother Titus died at 27 years old due to a rare form of cancer, when he caught five passes for 113 yards in a loss to the Colts. Two weeks later he set career-highs with 11 receptions and 182 yards in a loss to Cleveland.

Barring a disaster, Davis will notch his first 1,000-yard season in what likely will be his last season in Nashville.

-- David Boclair, AllTitans

Indianapolis Colts

After some early growing pains, rookie running back Jonathan Taylor is hitting his best stride with the Colts trying to make a playoff push.

The second-round selection out of Wisconsin rushed for a career-best 150 yards and two touchdowns in Sunday’s win at Las Vegas. His 62-yard TD rush wasn’t just his longest as a pro, it was the first time the Colts had a run of 25-or-more yards. They were the last NFL team to do so. He also had 15 yards on two receptions for a single-game best of 165 total yards.

In the last three games, Taylor has rushed for 331 rushing yards on 55 carries (6.01 ypc), and has caught all nine passes in which he’s been targeted for 83 yards and his first TD reception.

Taylor spoke Friday about how he hasn’t hit the rookie wall because the Colts have shared the workload for much of the season since 2019 leading rusher Marlon Mack suffered a season-ending ruptured Achilles tendon in the second quarter of the opener. But Taylor, who has 759 yards rushing and 286 receiving, is definitely the workhorse now for the finishing three-game stretch.

The Colts (9-4) are in position to make the playoffs for just the second time since 2015. They enter Sunday’s home game against the Texans as the AFC’s sixth seed and are tied with the Titans atop the AFC South, but the Titans have the tiebreaker advantage.

For much of the season, the Colts offense counted on 17th-year quarterback Philip Rivers to spread the ball around and minimize mistakes with quick reads and smart decisions. The run game without Mack fell far short of the team’s No. 7 ranking last season — Taylor was benched for his only lost fumble in a home loss to Baltimore — but the recent ground-game success has created a balanced offense which should be more difficult to defend down the stretch. The Colts have improved to 15th in rushing (113 yards per game) after being ranked in the bottom third in the first half of the season.

-- Phillip B. Wilson, AllColts

Houston Texans

Despite losing his No. 1 wide receiver twice — DeAndre Hopkins to a bad offseason trade and Will Fuller V to a recent six-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs — quarterback Deshaun Watson has played the best football of his four-year career.

The Texans signed Watson to a four-year, $160-million extension before this season, but haven’t done their star player many favors. No matter, he’s completed 297-of-431 passes (68.9%) for 3,761 yards (8.7 per attempt), 25 TDs with just six interceptions, and a passer rating of 109.4. Watson has also rushed for 369 yards on 76 carries (4.9 ypc) with three TDs.

Because he utilizes his scrambling ability to extend plays, he’s susceptible to sacks in taking 39 of the 40 the Texans have allowed. But Watson keeps playing with admirable determination. Despite a 4-9 record and being mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, the Texans have lost five games by one score, including one in overtime when they didn’t get the ball. Watson has had only one interception in the past eight games.

An offensive line anchored by Pro Bowl offensive left tackle Laremy Tunsil could be better, particularly in opening holes for an ineffective rushing offense that ranks dead last at 86.2 yards per game. Yeah, it’s all on Watson to give the Texans a chance, and he has more often than not.

The awful decision to trade Hopkins, among other questionable calls, led to the firing of head coach/general manager Bill O’Brien. His successor will know from day one that an immediate priority is to surround Watson with more playmakers.

-- Texans Daily

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