Trevor Lawrence Was Untouchable in Week 1 and Solved in Week 2. The NFL's No. 2 Scoring Defense Is Next

The Jacksonville Jaguars spent a week being told they were the sharp side. Then they went to Denver and got the streak taken from them.

The 20-13 loss to the Broncos on Sunday ended a nine-game winning run that stretched back into last season, including a 34-20 win at the same stadium in December. It also snapped the cleanest storyline in the AFC South: the one where a 1-0 Jacksonville team with a defense averaging 15 points allowed was quietly the best small-market story in the league.

The Lawrence Whiplash

Through two games, Trevor Lawrence's numbers still look good on paper — 434 passing yards, four touchdowns, one interception, a 67.3 completion rate and a 110.6 passer rating. That's the aggregate. The game logs tell a different story.

He was near-perfect in the opener, carving up Cleveland for four scores and no picks in a 34-10 rout. In Denver, the Broncos held him to 17-of-29 for 189 yards and an interception. Denver pressured him into quick, uncomfortable throws and dared the Jaguars to win on the ground, where the run game managed 110.5 yards per game on the season but never punished the Broncos enough to pull a safety out of coverage.

That is the book on Jacksonville now, and it's a thin one: if you can generate pressure without blitzing, Lawrence has to hold the ball, and the offense stalls. The Jaguars' pass rush was supposed to be the counterweight. It generated five sacks and 11 quarterback hits in Week 1, then watched Bo Nix's offense do just enough in the fourth quarter.

Reinforcements and a Roster Squeeze

The front seven has been in flux. Jacksonville placed defensive end B.J. Green II on injured reserve with an elbow injury after he managed only a handful of snaps against Cleveland, signed linebacker Jack Kiser to the 53-man roster, and added pass rusher B.J. Ojulari to the practice squad. The Ojulari move is the interesting one. But practice-squad depth is not the same as a healthy rotation, and the Jaguars need the Travon Walker extension to keep looking like the smartest deal in the building.

The good news: Brian Thomas Jr. surfaced on the Week 2 injury report but played, and the team came out of Denver without a new headline injury. Jakobi Meyers' status stays worth monitoring, but the core is intact.

Now Comes the Real Test

Jacksonville hosts New England on Sunday at EverBank Stadium, and the matchup is a referendum on everything above. The Patriots are allowing 8.0 points per game, the second-fewest in the league, and 287.5 yards per game. They just held Pittsburgh to three points. Their own offense is a slog — 15.0 points and 315.5 yards per game on a 193-yard passing average — so this shapes up as a low-possession, field-position fight.

The market has noticed. Jacksonville opened around a 2.5-point home favorite, and the moneyline moved from roughly -134 to -158 by closing, with the total sitting at 45.5. That's not a statement of faith in the Jaguars' offense; it's a statement about how bad New England's attack has looked.

The Jaguars' home/away split is stark — 34 points per game and a plus-24 differential at EverBank, 13 points and minus-7 on the road. If that pattern holds, the streak-ending loss in Denver says more about the road than the roster. If it doesn't, Jacksonville has a real problem: a streaky passer, a run game that doesn't scare anyone, and a defense asked to win games by itself.