Another Late-Game Field Goal by Josh Scobee Gives Jaguars
31-28 Victory over Colts
The Colts have seen this before, just not in this venue:
A wild, back-and-forth game . . .
The opponent, the Jacksonville Jaguars . . .
And with the score tied, Jaguars kicker Josh Scobee kicking for the victory . . .
Scobee, who twice before has beaten the Colts with long field goals in the waning moments, on Sunday kicked a career-long 59-yard field goal as time expired to give Jacksonville a dramatic, 31-28 victory over Indianapolis in front of 63,111 at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Fla.
Scobee's two previous career game-winners against the Colts came in Indianapolis in 2004 and 2008.
"Obviously, they (the Jaguars) certainly played well," Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell said after the Jaguars beat the Colts for the second time in the last seven meetings and the first time in Jacksonville since 2006. "I thought our guys hung in there. We had a couple of situations where we came away with no points in the red zone, but our guys hung in there.
"We gave ourselves a chance, but we couldn't seal the deal at the end."
The Colts, after taking an early 7-0 lead, three times rallied from seven-point deficits, with quarterback Peyton Manning's second touchdown pass of the game – a 1-yarder to wide receiver Austin Collie – tying it at 28-28 with 48 seconds remaining.
But the Jaguars drove 36 yards on six plays to set up Scobee's game-winning field goal.
The Colts, who entered the game with two turnovers in the first three games, committed two second-half turnovers Sunday afternoon, each of which came inside the Jaguars 10-yard line – an interception by Jaguars safety Antonio Smith off the hands of tight end Brody Eldridge at the Jaguars 4 and a fumble by wide receiver Reggie Wayne at the Jaguars 10 that Gerald Alexander recovered.
Smith's interception came in the third quarter and led to a touchdown while Alexander's fumble recovery came early in the fourth quarter.
"You have to be able to overcome them (turnovers)," said Manning, who completed 33 of 46 passes for 352 yards and two touchdowns with an interception for a passer rating of 99.2.
"Those things happen in the course of a football season and in the course of a game. There's still time to overcome them. You don't like for them to happen, and you like for everything to go just right. When they do happen, when there's time on the clock, you have to be able to overcome them and win in spite of them.
"We had chances to do that today. We just didn't do it."
Said Colts tight end Dallas Clark, "We had a lot of opunities. We just didn't capitalize on them all day. On the road, you have to at least come out with points. We weren't able to do that."
The Colts, after not allowing Denver a red-zone touchdown in five trips a week ago, allowed the Jaguars to score on three of three possessions inside the Colts' 20.
The Jaguars with the victory moved into a three-way tie for second place in the AFC South with Tennessee and Indianapolis. The Colts are 0-2 in the AFC South, with road losses at Jacksonville and at Houston in Week 1, 34-24. The trio is a game behind Houston in the AFC South.
"We're 2-2," Manning said. "That's what it is. That's not what we set out to be. That's what we are, though. We have to find a way to dig ourselves out of a hole. We are in a hole. We're behind in the division and we've lost two division games, which is certainly disappointing – and on the road, too. You have to be able to win on the road.
"That's disappointing, too. We have to go to work. We have to keep fighting and we have to find a way to get ourselves out of this hole."
Scobee's kick ended a back-and-forth game in which the teams were tied four times.
The Colts moved efficiently on the first series, with running back Joseph Addai scoring on a two-yard run to cap an 11-play, 59-yard drive. The Colts faced just one third down on the series, and Manning completed six of six passes.
But the Jaguars, who had lost back-to-back games by 25 points in the last two games for the first time in franchise history, drove immediately to tie the game. They used nine plays to move 76 yards, with quarterback David Garrard scoring on a 25-yard option touchdown run.
Jacksonville then took the lead early in the second quarter.
On a possession that overlapped the first and second quarter, the Jaguars drove 45 yards in seven plays, with running back Maurice Jones-Drew giving Jacksonville a 14-7 lead with a 1-yard run.
With Manning again moving the Colts efficiently, Indianapolis tied the game on its next possession. Again using 11 plays, the Colts moved 85 yards with Manning throwing a seven-yard pass to Clark to tie it at 14-14.
The Jaguars again took the lead with a 15-yard touchdown pass from Garrard to tight end Marcedes Lewis in the third quarter, and the teams traded touchdowns early in the fourth quarter to set up the Indianapolis late-game rally.
After Addai scored his second touchdown of the game on a 2-yard run, the Jaguars immediately drove 57 yards on nine plays to retake the lead with an 8-yard touchdown pass to Jones-Drew.
"They're good," Clark said. "They're well-coached and have a lot of pride, a lot of heart. With them, it always comes down to five plays – a couple of plays here, a couple of plays there. They made more plays than we did today."
That touchdown came with just over two minutes remaining, and after a 39-yard kickoff return by Justin Tryon, Manning and the Colts took possession at their 35 for what became the third of three game-tying drives.
"We've been up and down," Clark said. "We have to stop that. We have to be a more consistent team. We have to be the team we have shown we can be and keep doing our job. Everybody's got to take it upon themselves to improve that. We can't take weeks off. We can't look good one week, then come back and look mediocre.
"It's our job. We have to come back every week, keep doing the same thing and keep improving."
Said Caldwell, "We've faced some adversity before. We've faced situations where we've had to dig ourselves out of a hole. That's what it is today. We're just going to have to do it in a different way than we've done previously."
