The Sports Xchange

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars’ faith in Jason Myers paid off in a big way Sunday.

Myers, an undrafted rookie kicker from tiny Marist College whom the Jaguars elected to go with instead of veteran Josh Scobee this year, showed the Jaguars they made a wise move. He calmly converted his third field goal of the game, a 28-yarder with 40 seconds left in the game, to send the Jaguars to a 23-20 win over the Miami Dolphins Sunday at EverBank Field.

Myers had earlier made good on kicks from 27 and 58 yards out. While the last one was no more than a chip shot, it was particularly important. The Jaguars’ offense had stalled the entire second half until they drove down to the 9-yard line with 40 seconds remaining.

“I always have confidence in my kicking and I believe in myself,” Myers said. “I was actually more nervous about the opening kickoff than I was that last field goal. The guys have been great in supporting me since Day 1. I just went out there, kept my head down and did my job.

“And I really liked kicking that 58-yarder. I hit it good and the wind may have pushed it a little too. That was nice to see from that distance.”

The Jaguars set the stage for Myers’ heroics by putting together a nine-play march in just 68 seconds, going from their own 24-yard line to just inside the Dolphins 10-yard line. Quarterback Blake Bortles completed three of five passes in the drive, including 18- and 19-yard completions to wide receivers Marqise Lee and Allen Hurns, respectively.

The biggest play of the drive came following a 6-yard run by running back T.J. Yeldon to the Dolphins’ 34. Linebacker Olivier Vernon shoved Jaguars tight end Clay Harbor to the ground after the play and was hit with a personal foul. That gave the Jaguars a first down at the 19-yard line with just under a minute left in the game.

Three running plays netted 9 yards, which brought on Myers, who had missed a 42-yard field goal last week against Carolina. But he drilled this one through the uprights for the win.

“It was just a dumb play by me, that was it, we lost,” Vernon said. “It’s over with man, they played better ball than us. I take full responsibilities for my actions, on to the next week.”

What we learned about the Dolphins:

1. The Dolphins are making it rough on themselves with slow starts. For the second straight game, Miami found itself trailing by double figures in the first half. A week ago, Washington scored the first 10 points of the game before the Dolphins answered with 17 consecutive points to close out the game. On Sunday, Jacksonville led 17-6 with five minutes left in the first half. The Dolphins went on to outscore the Jaguars 14-3 to force a 20-20 tie before Jacksonville kicked the winning field goal in the closing seconds.

“I don’t know why we’re falling behind early in the games like that,” Miami quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “It’s not a lack of urgency from us. I know we’re coming into the games confident. We’re just not making enough plays early in the game. I’ll have to take a look at the tape to see if I can tell why.”

2. The Dolphins ground game has some work to do. When your leading rusher is your quarterback with 17 yards on the ground, that doesn’t bode well for your running game. Starting running back Lamar Miller finished with 14 yards on 10 carries. Two other backs added 11 yards on three attempts, leaving the Dolphins with just 42 rushing yards on 16 attempts, a 2.6 average.

Miller was somewhat slowed in the second half when he rolled an ankle and saw limited action. He carried the ball four times for no yards.

He still feels the Dolphins ground game can come around. “We have a long season, it’s only Week 2,” he said. “We need to make some adjustments and go from there. Once we run the ball, we’ve just got to make plays.”

3. The Dolphins need to get more production from defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh. After Miami’s first two games, Suh has a total of three tackles. Of bigger concern, he hasn’t been credited with a sack, a quarterback pressure or a quarterback hit. In Sunday’s game against the Jaguars, his only recorded listing on the stat sheet was one solo tackle. The Dolphins paid over $114 million over six years, including nearly $60 million in guaranteed money to Suh and they’ve yet to get their money’s worth from him.

“I thought he made a couple of plays,” Miami coach Joe Philbin said. “I don’t know what the stats sheet said. I think he was involved in a number of plays but we’ll look at the tape. It’s a team defense. It’s not one person that makes a defense. There are 11 guys that have to work together to make it work. ”

Etc.

–DE Olivier Vernon is as inquiring as the rest of his teammates why the Dolphins are not starting better. They’ve trailed by more than 10 points in the first half in each of their two games thus far.

“They just played well in the first half and we couldn’t get it done,” Vernon said. “That was it. We showed up in the second half and we lost. They played better ball than us and that’s it.”

–QB Ryan Tannehill passed for 345 yards against the Jaguars defense, but afterward, he was quick to praise the effort of the Jaguars defense. They put the clamps on the Dolphins quarterback following their opening drive of the second half in which Tannehill completed all five of his pass attempts, good for 86 yards and a touchdown.

“(Jacksonville’s defense) did a good job. Give credit to their defense, they played hard,” Tannehill said. “They did a good job in stopping the run and then put pressure on us in the second half. We just didn’t make enough plays, and we left some plays out there. A close game like that in the second half, you’ve got to make plays and we didn’t make them.”

–WR Jarvis Landry caught a game-high eight passes for 110 yards, including a long of 36. But Landry was like the rest of his teammates in the Dolphins locker room afterward – quiet, subdued and disappointed.

“We’re all disappointed in here. You don’t play this game to lose,” Landry said. “You don’t work as hard as we did to lose. We have to make more plays, period. In the 2nd half — we just couldn’t score. Had some drives going, but then nothing. Very disappointing.”