After the party, the hangover. As Friday night ran into Saturday morning four Jacksonville players were detained by police for nine hours after failing to pay a £50,000 bill in a London nightclub. Barely 36 hours later the rest of the Jaguars were also left with a thumping headache after a 24-18 defeat by the Philadelphia Eagles left their play-off hopes looking ropey.

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In the Jaguars’ changing room afterwards most players preferred to nibble on cheese and pepperoni pizzas than to talk about the elephant in the room. But the head coach, Doug Marrone, was clearly frustrated by his team’s behaviour – and their fourth consecutive defeat – which drops them to 3-5 for the season.

“Obviously my message is not getting across,” he said, with the wearied manner of a parent who has just been let down by a teenage child again. “Before we start performing better, we’ve got to take a look at what we’re doing all the other times.”

When asked whether he was concerned by reports that Barry Church, Ronnie Harrison, DJ Hayden and Jarrod Wilson had partied at the London Reign Showclub, where VIP tables have a minimum spend of £3,000 and bottles of champagne start at £450, his reply consisted of just one terse word: “Yes.”

A few yards away, the Eagles quarterback Carston Wentz was reflecting a job well done after throwing for 286 yards, with three touchdowns and one interception, to move his team to 4-4. “This is huge,” he said. “It’s good to go into the bye week with momentum and knowing the real meat of our schedule is ahead of us.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles is sacked during the first half. Photograph: Tim Ireland/AP

It was far from a classic. Yet it was always intriguing for a record NFL crowd of 85,870 at Wembley, most of whom were loudly supporting the Eagles. Not that they had much to cheer about early on as first Wentz fumbled under pressure from the Jaguars’ 24-stone defensive tackle Marcell Dareus and then threw an interception to Jalen Ramsey in the endzone. To make matters worse for the Super Bowl champions, they also lost their right tackle Lane Johnson due to a knee problem, further decimating their battered offensive line.

The Jaguars, however, could not take advantage and only led 6-3 with two minutes’ remaining of the first half, thanks to 51 and 57-yard field goals from Josh Lambo.

Yet they had possession – and would be receiving the ball at the start of the second half, which should have given them two chances to stretch their lead.

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But with the Jaguars it is rarely that simple. And as they moved into the Eagles’ half, Keenan Cole fumbled after a crunching hit from Avonte Maddox and suddenly momentum shifted. Soon after Wentz found Dallas Goedert for a 32-yard touchdown to put the Eagles 10-6 up at half-time, while another score to Wendell Smallwood extended the league to 11 points.

The Eagles knew it was not over. After all, they had frittered away a 17-point lead to the Carolina Panthers only last week. And slowly, and not entirely convincingly, Bortles finally got the Jaguars moving. First he threw a 11-yard touchdown to Dede Westbrook. Then, after the two-point conversion was missed, he set up Lambo for another field goal to make the score 17-15 with 13 minutes left.

The game was in the balance. But yet again Wentz stepped up – breezily leading the Eagles down the field before throwing his third touchdown of the afternoon to Zack Ertz to extend the lead to nine. The Jaguars still had chances, even after DJ Chark allowed what would have been a touchdown pass to squirm through his hands, which meant they had to settle for a field goal to reduce the deficit to 24-18 with seven minutes remaining.

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Yet when they got the ball back shortly before the end, the game was left in Bortles’s hands. And, not for the first time in his Jaguars’ career, he was unable to deliver.

Afterwards the Eagles tight end Ertz hailed his team’s performance at the death: “We had all the reasons to make excuses. A lot of adversity, not getting a lot of sleep Thursday night, flying seven hours, going into meetings. But the thing about this locker room is it’s full of guys that really love the game of football. Everyone loves to compete and play for the person next to them.”

After this London trip, would everyone in the Jaguars’ dressing room be able to say the same?