INDIANAPOLIS -- The Jaguars led the Patriots 20-10 early in the fourth quarter of the AFC championship game, but ended up by losing 24-20 as Tom Brady led the New England offense to two fourth-quarter touchdowns.
The other issue was the Jacksonville offense went punt, punt, punt, turnover on downs in its final four possessions.
Speaking Wednesday at the NFL combine, coach Doug Marrone took some responsibility for the loss.
“It is one of those things where we thought we would be able to run the football at an efficient level and we weren’t able to do that," he said. "You have to give New England credit there and they did a better job of executing, a better job of coaching than we did at times. I put that more on me than anything else. I have to do a better job for our coaches and our players to give them an opportunity to perform or execute at a better level.”
Added Marrone: “I think any time after the fact and you don’t win and sometimes when you win. Sometimes you win a game and you don’t feel good about it. You are going to go back and look and say, ‘Maybe we should have done this. Maybe we should have done that.’ I think that is a natural – it is human nature. I go home and my son is going to be the first one to tell me what we should have done. [Then] my wife and my daughters. You come in the next day and you look at it. I think anytime you don’t win a football game you are going to look back to see where you could have done a better job. Obviously in that game there were points where we could have done a better job. I am not just saying just the players, from us as coaches and we are all in that together.”
Despite the loss, Marrone said the team will take something away from making it to the AFC title game and make them better in 2018.
“I haven’t really been able to talk quite a bit to the team about that," he said. "That is something that we will probably discuss from the standpoint that it is on the back end of it because a new season starts. You are obviously going to be disappointed when you fall short of getting to the big game, of playing in the Super Bowl and playing for a world championship. You get that close – I think it hurts and there is a lot of pain. If you are not feeling that then you probably shouldn’t be in this profession. It is something that we have to understand that when you lose football games that that pain is going to be there and it is going to stay there and you hope it motivates you so that you never feel it again.”