Jacksonville Jaguars @ Las Vegas Raiders, 4:25 PM
Oh. Oh no. The NFL schedule-makers surely had no idea this game was going to end up looking like it does now, did they? In what could be the most irrelevant and single-worst game of the 2024 NFL Season, the Jacksonville Jaguars are in Las Vegas to play the Raiders. Yuck. I mean, where do we even begin here?
The Jaguars probably had high hopes in the 2024 NFL Season. This team was quite good in 2022, and while they collapsed down the stretch in 2023, they still managed to go 9-8. I was actually quite high on the Jags coming into the season and thought this team was a threat to win double-digit games, but I just seems like Doug Pederson is not a capable head coach in the NFL anymore, which is a shame.
Jacksonville also lost QB Trevor Lawrence for the rest of the season, so it's been Mac Jones taking over since then. As for the Las Vegas Raiders, they are in a similar situation; they lost starting QB Gardner Minshew to a broken collarbone and have since turned to Aidan O'Connell and Desmond Ridder.
It's been a horrifically ugly season for each team, but the Jags are clearly a lot closer to being viable again than the Raiders are. The Raiders may end up taking Shedeur Sanders in the 2025 NFL Draft, so they could at least have that going for them, I guess.
Man, it's even hard for me to think of what to say about this game. Both teams are bad, but I think the Jaguars are less-bad, if that makes sense. They should have a coaching and QB advantage coming into this game, and even though it is in Las Vegas, I expect the Jaguars will be able to do enough to make something happen here. Jags win!