Regret is a powerful thing. The feeling of regret can fuel one to ensure they never fail again. It can also overwhelm someone, leaving them with haunting reminders of what could have, and should have, been.
Regret is as prevalent in the world of football as it is anywhere else. When losses come, regret soon follows. And that is as true for the 2024 Jaguars as it is for any team in football, with the Jaguars disastrous season serving as one of the most disappointing in the sport this season.
So with two weeks left in a season that nobody can wait to end, it is only natural for Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson to admit on Friday that he ponders “what if?” often when it comes to the 2024 season.
“All the time. All the time. It doesn’t make me feel any better,” Pederson said.
Entering Sunday with a 3-12 record, the Jaguars have seen their season slip away week by week, close loss by close loss. The Jaguars have a 2-9 record in one-score games, the worst in the NFL and a shining example of just where things went wrong this year.
For Pederson, the question of “what if” goes all the way back to the Jaguars’ first one-score loss of the year — Week 1 vs. the Miami Dolphins, when a Travis Etienne fumble near the end-zone sparked a late-game collapse and a loss on a last-second field goal.
“I mean, you have to go all the way back to that game [Week 1 at Miami]. If you hang onto that football, you’re a 24-7 lead going into the fourth quarter. And who knows?” Pederson said.
It didn’t stop there, either. Pederson would go on in point out similar mistakes in a Week 2 loss to the Cleveland Browns and a Week 4 loss to the Houston Texans, both also by one score.
“Go to the next game. If we don’t have an illegal shift in the red zone, we score a touchdown, kick a field goal, it’s a different ball game. It’s just, ‘What if?’” Pederson said.
“Even the first Houston game, opportunities down the field to make plays and we don’t do it. It’s the fundamentals of football. You go through that—I don’t let it really, it doesn’t eat me up because I can’t do anything about it now—but things that as a team, we need to learn.”
The Jaguars’ inability to overcome adversity at the end of close games has doomed the 2024 season, and perhaps the entire Pederson era. It is a lesson the Jaguars have ultimately had to learn the tough way.
“We need to learn. They’re hard lessons to learn and we need to learn them fast,” Pederson said.
“For us to have nine one-score losses this year, and you look at what the Chiefs have 16 or so one-score wins. It’s just a matter of making those plays. It’s just making one or two more plays a game, and then it goes the other way for you. That’s what we have to learn.”
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