The Sports Xchange

JACKSONVILLE — Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles suffered a grade 1 AC joint sprain early against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, but played the entire game and threw four touchdown passes for the first time in his career. He was sacked six times.

Coach Gus Bradley said Bortles likely won’t practice Wednesday and they will then decide whether he can go Thursday. Bradley said he expects Bortles to play Sunday against the Houston Texans, but it remains to be seen whether the injury will limit his effectiveness or whether he will aggravate it when he is hit.

“I wouldn’t be alarmed if he didn’t practice Wednesday,” Bradley said. “Right now, we think he should be in good shape.”

Meanwhile, as the Jaguars prepare to face Houston on Sunday in an AFC South game between a pair of disappointing 1-4 teams, Bradley is attempting to correct all the mistakes they made in Tampa.

The fans are calling him to make changes – possibly taking over the defensive calls from defensive coordinator Bob Babich – or player changes.

Bradley rejected those ideas.

He said they had 25-30 mistakes, including 23 missed tackles, but they were spread out among several players.

He said Tampa had 102 yards on five explosive runs. And five different players missed tackles. If one player was missing them, he could target that player.

Instead, since the mistakes are spread out, he’s stressing the coaches and players take personal responsibility for their own mistakes.

“I’m talking about coaches included,” he said. “We each took turns making mistakes. You have Player A made a mistake. You have Player B made a different mistake, Player C made a mistake, maybe a coaching mistake here and there, and then another one. How can we get that fixed?” he said.

Bradley said that’s where the personal responsibility comes in. He also said a player would make a mistake in practice, they would correct it and then he would make it in a game.

He said another problem is that they make certain mistakes in a game and so they work on correcting them, and then they make different mistakes in the next game.

The Jaguars find out Sunday against Houston if they can fix enough mistakes to get their second victory.

If they don’t beat Houston on Sunday or Buffalo in London the following Sunday, the Jaguars will have the same 1-6 record they had after seven games last season. Bradley is now 8-29 in his three -ear tenure – 4-12, 3-13 and 1-4.

“When you’re playing close games, there’s little margin for error,” he said. “We’re not a team that’s going out there and winning, 31-7,” he said.

REPORT CARD VS. BUCCANEERS

–PASSING OFFENSE: B. Blake Bortles had good numbers, throwing four touchdown passes for the first time in his career as he completed 23 of 33 passes for 303 yards. But he had one pick and was sacked six times and he probably suffered a grain 1 AC joint sprain on one of those sacks.

–RUSHING OFFENSE: F. The Jaguars never got the running game going. T.J. Yeldon had just 32 yards in 11 carries. And the Jaguars put in a package of plays for rookie Corey Grant but he fumbled when he took a pitch and the Bucs recovered and scored a touchdown. The fumble was caused by a missed block because Grant was hit the moment he got the ball.

–PASS DEFENSE: C. The Bucs used a conservative game plan as Jameis Winston, who threw four picks a week ago, threw just 19 times, completed 13 for 209 yards with one touchdown and no picks. And the Jaguars sacked him only twice. Winston never held the ball longer than 2.5 seconds before throwing so the Jaguars didn’t have much of a chance to put heat on him. Winston’s passing yardage was somewhat misleading because 56 of his yards came on a screen pass to Charles Sims.

–RUN DEFENSE: F. The Jaguars, who played good run defense in the first four games and are still ranked 15th in run defense, were shredded on the ground. The Bucs ran for 183 yards on 40 carries. Running the ball 40 times is usually a receipt for winning. Doug Martin led the way with 123 yards in 24 carries.

–SPECIAL TEAMS: F. The Jaguars were inept on punt coverage as Bobby Rainey returned three punts for 85 yards, including a 58-yard run. On that play, Bernard Pierce inexplicably blocked a Tampa Bay player as Rainey raced by him. Pierce may have been suffering the effects of a concussion. One of the problems was that Bryan Anger was outkicking the coverage with punts of 63 and 61 yards. On the 63-yarder, Corey Grant downed it with no return. But Rainey’s 58-yard run came on a 61-yard punt.

–COACHING: D. Coach Gus Bradley is dealing with a bad hand. He doesn’t have enough playmakers and has too many players who make mistakes. General manager Dave Caldwell hasn’t done a good job of building the roster after tearing it down when he took over in 2013. The Jaguars missed 23 tackles and made mistakes on the field after they were corrected in practice.