For the first time in half a decade, the Jacksonville Jaguars are back in the NFL Playoffs. A late-season surge, coupled with a collapse by the Tennessee Titans, allowed Jacksonville to clinch the AFC South and the AFC's fourth seed with a 9-8 record. Jaguars fans are ecstatic to see their team back in the postseason, but there's still an appetite for more.
Jacksonville's first test of the playoffs will be a home match against the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday night. This game is a rematch of a Week 3 game in Los Angeles, where the Jaguars thumped the Chargers 38-10. Both teams are much different now, but that result has to be encouraging for Jaguars fans.
This game should be much closer than the previous one, as the 1.5-point spread in Los Angeles' favor would indicate. Each team will need everything it has to come out on top, and one player's performance could swing the game either way.
The Jaguars have plenty of these impact or X-factor player that will need to show up on Saturday. The one player most will point to is quarterback Trevor Lawrence, and deservedly so. While Lawrence is certainly an X-factor, he is not the biggest one on Jacksonville's roster.
For starters, Lawrence himself is questionable for the game with a toe injury. While he will almost certainly be out there unless he literally can't walk, that injury could limit his effectiveness on the field. That means that other players will need to play at their best to help take the load off the quarterback, and that's especially true for one player in particular.
Jaguars X-Factor vs. Chargers: Travis Etienne
Jacksonville's biggest X-factor is none other than Lawrence's right-hand man Travis Etienne. The Jaguars selected both players out of Clemson in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft, but a preseason injury caused Etienne to miss the entire year. This season, the running back is showing why he had such hype coming out of college.
Etienne has been a huge part of Jacksonville's offense the entire season. He finished the regular season with 220 carries for 1,125 yards, which leads the team by a country mile, and five touchdowns. For reference, the Jaguars leading rusher behind Etienne is James Robinson, who they traded after seven games, with 340 yards.
Etienne's emergence has greatly boosted the Jaguars' entire ground game. Last season, they averaged just 103.2 rushing yards per game, which ranked 22nd in the NFL. This season, they are averaging 124.5 rushing yards per game, which ranks 14th in the league.
The ex-Clemson Tiger has had several big performances this season, with five games over 100 yards. Jacksonville is 3-2 in said games, and is averaging 26.4 points per game. On the other hand, the Jaguars are 6-6 and averaging 22.6 points per game when he doesn't hit triple digits. It may seem like a small difference, but those extra points go a long way.
Fortunately for Etienne, he is going up against a very poor rush defense in the Wild Card Round. The Chargers are allowing 145.8 rushing yards per game this season, which ranks 28th in the NFL and the worst of any AFC playoff team. This team has allowed players such as Cam Akers and Latavius Murray to surpass 100 yards, and if they can do it, then Etienne certainly can as well.
In the previous matchup, Etienne had a pretty quiet game with just 13 carries for 45 yards. However, Robinson went for 100 yards on 17 carries, including a 50-yard touchdown in the third quarter. Now that Etienne is getting the bulk of the carries, he should be able to put up big numbers against LA.
Etienne is coming off a poor performance against the Titans in Week 18, with just seven carries for 17 yards. The Jaguars offense as a whole struggled, and Etienne's inability to get going definitely played a part in that. For Jacksonville to advance to the Divisional Round, Etienne must have a big game on Saturday.
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