Jaguars most to blame for embarrassing 35-7 loss to Rams in London

The Jacksonville Jaguars feel like one of the streakiest teams in the NFL right now. Jacksonville was on top of the world a few weeks ago, flying high after a last-second win against Kansas City from Week 5. But now the Jaguars have lost two consecutive games, including an ugly Week 7 smackdown by the Rams in London.

Jacksonville lost 35-7 against Los Angeles on a day where Matthew Stafford set an international record for touchdown passes. That must be embarrassing for Jacksonville, as they've played in London more than any other NFL team.

The Jaguars could not stop the Rams from moving the ball and could not put up many points themselves. That is always a losing recipe in the NFL.

But how did the Jaguars lose so badly? And did they finally show their true colors as pretenders in the AFC?

Below we will explore who is most to blame for Jacksonville's ugly Week 7 loss from London.

Trevor Lawrence not in rhythm with his receivers

The Jaguars put the ball in Lawrence's hands early and often in Week 7.

Jacksonville hoped that their franchise quarterback could guide them to victory. Instead, he put up a dreadful performance against the Rams.

Lawrence went 23-of-48 passing for 296 yards and one touchdown. The headline is the 25 incompletions that Lawrence threw. He repeatedly missed open receivers, some due to miscommunications and others due to simply bad throws.

Jacksonville only had 19 carries by comparison, and two of those were scrambles by Lawrence himself.

Let's not forget that Lawrence was also sacked seven times.

Simply put, the Jaguars got down early because of Lawrence's inability to score. Then they needed him more than ever to get back in the game and it did not work.

Lawrence's underwhelming performance perfectly encapsulates how his career has gone so far. And how Jaguars fans feel about their team right now.

There's certainly a lot to like about Lawrence and the Jaguars. But they've had too many poor performances over the last few years to have much faith in them until they prove otherwise.

But silver lining: Lawrence finally found Travis Hunter for a touchdown in garbage time.

Jacksonville committed too many mistakes, penalties to win the game

Some of the blame must be placed squarely on Liam Coen's leadership of the Jaguars.

The Jaguars played some incredibly undisciplined football against the Rams. In fact, Jacksonville was flagged 13 times for 119 penalty yards.

That kind of volume for penalties is never good. But it looks worse when seeing what plays those penalties took away.

The worst of those came on what would have been a punt return for a touchdown by Parker Washington.

When the Jaguars weren't committing penalties, they were shooting themselves in the foot with some boneheaded coaching decisions.

Jacksonville started the game with three consecutive punts followed by a missed field goal. That caused Coen to get even more aggressive to try and dig the Jaguars out of the hole. And it backfired in spectacular fashion.

The Jaguars drove back into field goal range on their next three drives. They went for it on fourth down each time and were turned away every single one.

Perhaps what is most frustrating about the situation is how Jacksonville responded based on the situation.

In retrospect, going for it on fourth down looks like the smart move on the initial missed field goal attempt. It was also a defensible choice each time after that, but it would have been nice to get some points on the board to help swing the momentum back in their favor.

Jacksonville has a lot to clean up, and they can get an early start on their trip back from London.

Jaguars defense could not stop Matthew Stafford, Davante Adams

The final score makes it look like the Rams absolutely dominated the Jaguars on offense.

The Rams did accomplish whatever they wanted on offense, scoring five touchdowns. However, they weren't burning Jacksonville with chunk play after chunk play. In fact, Los Angeles only had a handful of plays over 10 yards on the day.

Remember those failed fourth-down attempts by the Jaguars? Those gave the Rams advantageous field position on multiple occasions.

Credit the Rams for making the most of those short fields. The box score illustrates the situation well, as LA only managed 271 total yards on offense, but they scored 35 points.

Jacksonville could not stop LA's running attack, as Kyren Williams and Blake Corum combined for 24 carries and 91 rushing yards. Meanwhile, Davante Adams looked unstoppable with five receptions for 35 yards and three touchdowns.

The Jaguars also failed to put pressure on Stafford, not logging a single sack on the afternoon.

Ultimately, the entire Jaguars defense was not up to the task on Sunday. But they were put into several tough situations by their offense.

Hopefully the defense looks better after the bye week against the Raiders.