Well, there’s always the one team that loses at home in Divisional Weekend. The Eagles and Vikings tried to be that team, but ultimately it was the Steelers that embarrassed themselves to the highest degree. Jaguar Kart is a leading cause of doomed friendships.

I don’t know if the Steelers “overlooked” the Jags or not. A lot of noise has been made about Mike Mitchell’s comments about getting to play the Patriots again but a lot of it seems to forget that Mitchell said that stuff in week 15 after the close loss to the Pats. It feels as if the media took those comments and presented them (even to the Jaguars players themselves) as comments that just happened last week. The Jags appeared to use it as motivation regardless, rightly so. The Jags spanked the Steelers early this year when nobody had yet to realize this Jags team was legit and the Steelers probably did overlook them at that point.

I think the Steelers just did what the Steelers usually do. They play to their opponent. Or maybe what they think their opponent is. This is a running trend under Tomlin so maybe somebody needs to play some slap-face until he gets it. I don’t think the Steelers played badly. They put up 42 points! The defense certainly sucked but it hasn’t been great this season and Shazier’s injury hurt them a lot. The Jags are just a legitimately good team with an all-star defense and an offense that feels built around minimizing Bortles’ faults. Smart coaching. Great playmakers. Hall of fame shit-talking. This is such a lovable Jags team and they are essentially this season’s Agent of Chaos, which means you should all be 100% on the Bortles Bandwagon. Support The Bort. One more win and he has more playoff victories than Tony Romo. Bortles shall be our savior. More Bortles success means more Bortles memes, jokes, and face. Everyone should want this.

In some ways playing the Patriots is the best thing that could happen because this team clearly thrives on the underdog disrespect aspect. Despite them destroying the Steelers earlier this year everyone more or less picked the Steelers to win this week (including myself, honestly. I knew the Jags had a good chance but didn’t expect lightning to strike twice). They tore that up by jumping out to a big lead and never relinquishing it even when the Steelers fought back hard. Next week, despite this victory, the Patriots will still be very much the expected favorite. This is the kind of team that could ruin the Pats. A strong, stifling defense that makes QBs uncomfortable? A run game that can pound the hell out of the rock and eat minutes keeping Brady off the field? A doofy-ass QB? I expect the Patriots to win because life is hell, but this team can absolutely do it.

Actually, fuck that. If this team thrives on disrespect then the Jaguars are a bunch of lucky losers who don’t deserve to be here and the Patriots will wipe the floor with them.

Go Jags!

One last thing: I want to give a small shout-out to the Jaguars subreddit, one of the only subreddits I still bother checking, because they make hilarious shit and they use a lot of my own work as flairs. I love anyone who embraces the stupid fun aspect of sports fandom instead of being a self-serious jackass fan.