Jaguars return to Acrisure Stadium for 1st time since 2017 as formidable road block for Steelers

Behind a young quarterback, talented wide receivers, first-round running back and a sturdy 3-4 defense, this team playing at Acrisure Stadium on Sunday has compiled one of the NFL’s top records since the middle of last season.

It even has a recent playoff victory on its resume.

Until that last sentence, you may have thought the team in question was the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Nope, it’s the visiting Jacksonville Jaguars, who share some of the traits as the team they will be facing in one of the NFL’s better matchups this weekend.

At 5-2 and winners of four in a row, the Jaguars occupy first place in the AFC South. Since the middle of last season, Jacksonville is 12-4.

“We’ve got a lot of respect for that,” coach Mike Tomlin said. “They’ve got a lot of talent.”

Winners of three of their last four games, the Steelers are 4-2 this year and 11-4 since the midpoint of 2022. While Jacksonville’s 7-2 run at the end of last season helped them finish 9-8 and win the South, the Steelers’ identical finish left them on the outside of the playoff picture.

Jacksonville took advantage of its inclusion in the postseason by overcoming a 27-point deficit to defeat the Los Angeles Chargers, 31-30, in the wild-card round. It lost by a touchdown to eventual Super Bowl champion Kansas City in the divisional round.

That playoff victory, of course, is one more than the Steelers have registered since these two teams squared off after the 2017 regular season at Acrisure Stadium. The stinging 45-42 defeat to the Jaguars began a run of three one-and-done playoff failures by the Steelers since they reached the AFC championships game after the 2016 season.

While the Steelers have scored a pair of victories in Duval County, this will be their first meeting with the Jaguars at Acrisure since that playoff game.

Since then, the two teams have taken opposite paths to getting back to this stage of competitiveness. While the Steelers have managed to keep Tomlin’s string of non-losing seasons intact, the Jaguars plunged to the depths of the NFL before resurfacing.

In the four seasons following that playoff encounter, the Jaguars compiled a 15-50 record, exchanged Doug Marrone for Urban Meyer as head coach and watched that experiment last just 13 games.

By virtue of a 1-15 record in 2020, the Jaguars got quarterback Trevor Lawrence with the No. 1 overall pick. Later in the first round, one pick after the Steelers selected Najee Harris, the Jaguars added Travis Etienne, who this year is the NFL’s fourth-leading rusher.

Lawrence and Etienne represent one of the NFL’s top backfield duos and join receivers Christian Kirk and Calvin Ridley to comprise a top-10 offense this season.

“They have an unbelievable group of skilled position players,” defensive coordinator Teryl Austin said. “We’re going to have to play really lights out. We’re going to have to do things to affect the quarterback. We’re going to have to do things to affect the receivers so they’re not running free. We’ve got to do a better job for us in the run game.

“We have to do better.”

Arriving in the NFL a year before the Steelers’ Kenny Pickett, a former ACC contemporary, Lawrence is starting to come into his own. After leading the NFL in interceptions as a rookie, Lawrence cut his picks in half while throwing 25 touchdown passes last season. This year, he’s completing a career-best 67.4% of his passes with eight touchdowns and three interceptions.

“You can see he’s a lot more comfortable now,” Austin said. “You watch him just drop back and throw some outs, I mean, on a rope. He just makes some really good throws, has really good accuracy. He’s big, he knows when the play breaks down, he can escape and create positive plays out of something that didn’t look so positive.”

The Jaguars also have drafted wisely on defense, getting pass-rushing linebacker Josh Allen in the opening round in 2019. He has seven sacks this season, one fewer than the Steelers’ T.J. Watt and two shy of the league lead.

In 2021, armed once more with the No. 1 overall pick, the Jaguars added defensive end Travon Walker to the mix.

“He’s just the type of guy that wrecks a lot of things,” Tomlin said. “He plays with a violent style of play. He’s just a wrecking ball. And, so, we’ve just got to be really cognizant of their group and the challenges that come with managing their front.”

Holding it all together is coach Doug Pederson, the former Super Bowl-winning coach of the Philadelphia Eagles who joined the Jaguars in time to oversee last year’s 9-8 season.

Pederson has kept the ship steered on course toward another possible AFC South division title this year. A victory Sunday against the Steelers would be an important step in that process.

The Steelers would like to keep their recent spurt going, too, if they are going to return to the playoffs — and maybe win that elusive postseason game.

“It’s good to be in big games versus good people as we work to find the type of traction that’s going to be required for us to be included in that discussion,” Tomlin said.