The Jacksonville Jaguars are coming off a brutal Monday Night Football loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. This was initially a highly-anticipated showdown between two AFC contenders, but the season-ending injury to Joe Burrow made it seem like it would be easy Jaguars win.

Not exactly.

Instead of coasting, the Jaguars ended up in a back-and-forth battle with Cincinnati while Jake Browning played like the second-coming of Burrow in the Bengals 34-31 overtime win.

Overall most of the blame for this loss is going to fall on the defensive side. The offensive played well enough to win with Trevor Lawrence going 22-29 for 258 yards and two touchdowns while C.J. Beathard went 9-10 for 63 yards. They had a good balance getting the ball to their skill position players including Evan Engram scoring his first touchdown of the year. A couple of things could have gone better — the Jags got called for a controversial holding penalty in overtime which negated a huge completion that would have put them in the red zone. They also missed a field goal, and Lawrence missed a third-and-13 throw down the left sideline that would have resulted in a big gain.

Still, the most consistent mistakes came defensively. Not all was bad defensively. Linebacker Josh Allen continued his dominance when he picked off Bengals wide receiver Tyler Boyd on a failed trick play and sacked Browning out of field goal range in the fourth quarter. But not a lot else went well for them.

Here are the three units/people most to blame for the Jaguars' loss:

Jaguars Secondary

It's clear that the NFL world underestimated Jake Browning coming into this game. Credit goes to both him and coach Zac Taylor for getting him ready because their efforts clearly paid off. Browning went 32-37 for 354 yards and a touchdown pass in the win. He also had two carries for 22 yards and a touchdown on the ground. He connected with Ja'Marr Chase on 11 of those passes for 149 yards and the touchdown.

Beyond the numbers, Browning was slicing up the Jaguars defense all game. The Jaguars secondary was clearly unable to keep up with Chase, which was most evident on the third-year receiver's 76-yard touchdown catch and run. On the play, Chase blew past cornerback Tyson Campbell and got a crucial score.

Jaguars Run Defense

Outside of the secondary, the run defense also allowed Cincinnati to move down the field offensively. The Jaguars gave up 156 rushing yards to the Bengals, who aren't a particularly good rushing team. Joe Mixon and Chase Brown each had over 60 yards on the ground with Brown averaging 6.8 yards per carry. Mixon had 117 total scrimmage yards, with his work in the screen game contributing. Jacksonville's run defense ranks sixth in the NFL, usually giving up less than 100 ground yards per game. However, they were unable to maintain that standard versus the Bengals, which helped Browning and the offense keep a balanced game-plan.

Defensive Coordinator Mike Caldwell

The game-plan for the Jaguars defense clearly didn't work well enough this week. The Jaguars had an advantage in this game going up against an inexperienced starting quarterback, but instead made him look like a veteran.

They also didn't scheme well enough to cover Ja'Marr Chase, who had a huge day. Stopping Chase should be the number one priority for the Jaguars, given he has the game-breaking ability to turn any reception into a big one. He showed this ability on that 76-yard touchdown. On that crucial touchdown, the Jaguars left Tyson Campbell one-on-one versus Chase with no safety help on his side of the field. Campbell played press coverage, which Chase excels at and took advantage of, per Next Gen Stats.

Had the Jaguars wanted to put their defensive backs in a better position to succeed, there would have been at least one guy other than Campbell on Chase's side of the fielf. The Bengals formation did put them in a tight bind with three receivers on the other side of the ball, but a one-on-one matchup against Chase is rarely a safe bet for the defense.