Chris Jones made his mark, but not in the way you’d expect from a player of his caliber.
With 30 seconds left and the Chiefs clinging to a four-point lead with Jacksonville in the red zone, Trevor Lawrence tripped on his offensive lineman’s legs and fell to the ground while Kansas City’s All-Pro pass-rusher watched from afar.
Jones walked around the goal line as Lawrence fell to the ground twice and went untouched, before finally scampering to his feet and diving into the end zone for a touchdown in Jacksonville’s 31-28 win.
It is unclear what Jones’ assignment was on the play — he could have been tasked with being a QB spy on a pass play, but the effort on the play looks shoddy to say the least.
After the game, Jones criticized the defense for its poor final drive that allowed Lawrence to drive Jacksonville for a game-winning touchdown.
“We gave this game away,” Jones said postgame. “So many mistakes by us. So many things we could have done differently … I put it on us as a defense. We have to finish. We have to bring him down on that.”
“I thought multiple times we had him. We’ve just got to finish. Us, as a defensive line, we’ve got to be more disciplined on our rush lanes. We let Trevor get out multiple times, especially in the red zone. That’s on the D-line. We’ve got to be cognizant on our gaps. I take that personal, the containment of the quarterback.”
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Had Jones or anyone made a tackle on the play, the Jaguars would have been in a nightmare spot with zero timeouts and the clock would have been ticking down with roughly 27 seconds remaining.
“Watch Chris Jones on the final TD,” NFL pundit Warren Sharp wrote on X after the game.
Jones also chased after Lawrence earlier in the drive in search of a sack, but he could not bring him down as the Jaguars quarterback scrambled away.
Mahomes and the Chiefs ultimately got the ball back at their own 17-yard line — due to a penalty — with just 16 seconds left.
The Chiefs never really threatened for a game-tying field, and they fell to 2-3 with the loss while Jacksonville improved to 4-1 under first-year head coach Liam Coen.
Kansas City won’t have much time to lick its wounds, as it has a date set with the Detroit Lions on “Sunday Night Football” in what many project to be a shootout.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
