Monday Night Football preview: Can the Jags keep their foot on the gas?
It’s Monday and you know what that means — another Monday Night Football preview with Mike Golic Jr. and Mike Golic Sr.!
Good news, Emerson Lotzia — the Jags are BACK on Monday Night Football! Yes, Jacksonville will be playing on Monday Night Football for the first time since December 5, 2011, when they lost to Phillip Rivers and the then-San Diego Chargers. What a time to be alive.
Senior says he’s been fortunate to play on a few Monday nights and he says it is great and if he was in that position where they hadn’t been on MNF he could definitely see the excitement. But, Senior admits that after the second or third MNF appearance, his thought was always about what it did to his team’s schedule. He says he always worried more about that than being on Monday Night, even as cool as it was to do. But go out and live it up, Josh Allen.
GoJo wants to know where his dad was about night games in general. Senior says he always preferred to play at 1 p.m. in the NFL or give him a noon game in college. He says he wanted to get up, eat his breakfast and get to the stadium right at the time he had to be there (unlike those offensive linemen who would be dressed, taped and ready to go HOURS before kickoff). He says he hated night games because you just laid around all day and all of a sudden you were tired from laying around all day. GoJo says like anything else it’s all about what you get used to. He reminisces that in his senior year at Notre Dame, the Irish played seven primetime games, so his team got used to playing late. He says he enjoyed going back to his room and having his mid-afternoon nap, following his milk and cookies, of course.
Onto tonight’s game, GoJo notes that the Jags have won seven out of their last eight games, even if it hasn’t always been pretty, and at this point he’s just not sure what the Bengals have. Jake Browning struggled last week, but at the same time, Joe Mixon had just eight carries for only 16 yards. So, GoJo says when the Jags’ defense can load up and expect one thing, he doesn’t see much recourse for the Cincy offense, not to mention the Bengals defense that has struggled along with it.
Senior says the best thing that can help a backup quarterback is the running game and right now the Bengals are last in the league averaging just under 76 yards per game. So their running game is getting no respect and opponents are making the Bengals’ backup QB beat them. Meanwhile, on the other side, Senior notes that the Jags are on their fifth offensive line combination, a position group that needs to be more in step than any other. So Senior says that could have an impact, especially if the Cincy defense which has been so inconsistent is on its game on Monday night and can make things uncomfortable. He notes that when you’re trotting out a backup QB, as his Philly team did in 1991, the other side of the ball takes it upon themselves to step it up and pick up the slack. And sometimes when that happens, it can lead a unit to press and overstep.
GoJo says for Jacksonville, it’s about whether they can keep their foot down on the gas on offense, nothing that Trevor Lawrence played last week against Houston and we’ve finally seen some consistency out of Calvin Ridley. Finding a way outside of the opening game script to be balanced and viable will be huge as they try to check boxes going forward and solidify their playoff positioning.
Senior says the Jags have to get into their game quickly tonight, get past the bright lights and play ball because they’re a better team than a Joe Burrow-less Bengals squad and they need to take care of business.
Meanwhile, the Golics broke down all of Sunday’s NFL action with the latest edition of Mike’d Up Monday!
SHOW BREAKDOWN
Hour 1: CFP Reactions: Florida State Snubbed, Georgia Jumped and ACC disrespected + LOVE Jordan Love, Tyreek Hill MVP odds & NFL Week 13 Big Winners: 49ers, Packers, Texans
Hour 2: College Football Playoffs Revisited: Odds, Entertainment & Washington’s Rank + Jaguars on Monday Night Football, All-Weekend Teams & LeBron’s Ejection
Watch GoJo and Golic every weekday on Samsung TV Plus, Roku, Xumo Play and DraftKingsNetwork.com from 8 to 10 a.m. ET. The show will also be available via audio on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also follow Mike Golic Sr. on X at @golic and Mike Golic Jr. on X at @mikegolicjr.
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