With about 1:40 left in Sunday’s 28-23 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Jacksonville Jaguars had a chance to record one of the biggest upsets of the 2024 season.

After the Jaguars battled back from a 22-0 deficit thanks to a defensive score and two Trevor Lawrence rushing touchdowns, Jacksonville had the ball at the Eagles’ 13-yard line and faced 1st-and-10.

The Jaguars were then faced with the obvious question: head to the end zone or continue racking up yards and killing the clock.

“Yeah, with the time left, we had talked about it on the sidelines about slowing down the pace at the end, you know, and that’s just something you have to try to do, right? If you can stay in bounds, you stay in bounds,” Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said after the game.

“Or if it’s incomplete, you play another down, whatever. But at the end of the day, we still needed to score and I felt good with the way our defense played, they would give us a chance.”

The Jaguars elected to take a chance, and it came in the form of a pass to third-string running back D’Ernest Johnson. Johnson was confronted by Eagles linebacker Nakobe Dean and found himself the target of a game-clinching interception in the back of the end zone from Trevor Lawrence.

“Yeah, it’s the first reading. Great play from (Eagles LB Nakobe Dean),” Pederson said.

“I mean, you’ve got a minute and 40 something left on the clock. I think it was first down, something like that. That’s always part of our game plan in the red zone. It wasn’t not like we were forcing a throw to the end zone, I’m saying that was part of our red zone game plan, so great play by (Eagles LB Nakobe Dean).

No Evan Engram, no Brian Thomas Jr. – it was Johnson who the Jaguars turned to for the biggest play of the game. And it was the same play Pederson and Trevor Lawrence expected to play all the time.

“Yeah, they were doing a good job mixing things up on defense. But, you know, (we) kind of started getting more men towards the end. We made some big plays. Just whoever we hit (Jaguars WR Austin Trammell) took advantage and got there,” Lawrence said.

“And then, you know, it was kind of a play (based) on what we did earlier, and we did some stuff with the running back and some option routes, and we tried to ‘go over the top and just I have to give credit to (Eagles LB Nakobe Dean) – did a great job (Eagles LB) Nakobe (Dean) did a great job making this play and it’s just tough. When it ended that way, I thought we’d have a chance, I left him a touch inside, and (Dean) got his eyes back. You know, a lot of times these linebackers don’t get their eyes back. and don’t play the ball, and I thought we had a chance I could go up and get it and he did it – he did a great job.

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