Jaguars hold off Bills’ late surge to collect second straight London win

The Jacksonville Jaguars continued its success in London on Sunday morning, taking down the Buffalo Bills, 25-20, at Tottenham Stadium. 

The crowd was predominantly Bills favored at kickoff, but the Jaguars’ defense took the air out of the building right away by halting any offensive pressure from the team that averages 34.8 points heading into this matchup. 

A thrilling fourth quarter saw Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars’ offense finally get back into the end zone after not finding it since their first drive of the season. 

Running back Travis Etienne bounced outside in the red zone, and used his speed to fly into the end zone from six yards out, capping a 93-yard, 10-play drive for Jacksonville to make it 18-7. 

But Josh Allen and the Bills’ offense, which struggled for most of the game, found the life they needed to keep themselves in the game with a response touchdown drive.

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Allen found Gabe Davis for a touchdown on two separate occasions on one drive, as the first touchdown was called back for offensive pass interference. On the next play, Davis fought pass interference to haul in a touchdown that counted to make it 18-13. A two-point conversion didn’t work out in the Bills’ favor, though. 

The Jaguars were feeling the pressure and certainly didn’t want to give the ball back to the Bills with a potential game-winning drive in the cards. 

So head coach Doug Pederson trusted Lawrence to get the job done, and it came on a key deep ball to his top target, Calvin Ridley, down the left sideline. It was a perfectly placed ball over Ridley’s right shoulder and out of safety Micah Hyde’s reach for a first down on third-and-four. 

Two plays later, Etienne found the end zone once more, which would be the dagger in this one. Etienne made a nice move right before he got to the line of scrimmage to make a Bills defender miss, and his blazing speed was utilized to blow by the remaining defender for a 35-yard score. 

With the score 25-13, Allen and the Bills still had time to make things interesting. As he’s done so many times in the past, he took advantage of the time on the clock. Buffalo needed just four plays to score another touchdown, with Allen finding Deonte Harty for 43 yards and Davis for 29 to get to Jacksonville’s three-yard line. 

Allen would rush it in himself to get the score to 25-20 with just over two minutes to play. Having no timeouts left, the Bills were forced to try an onside kick. Though Tyler Bass got a great bounce on his kick, the Bills weren’t able to recover as the ball went out of bounds. 

That was the last effort for Buffalo, as it dropped its second game of the season to move to 3-2. The Jags, meanwhile, swept their play in London to move to 3-2 as well. 

Lawrence finished the game with 315 yards and one touchdown – a strike to Zay Jones on their first drive of the game – on 25 of 37 through the air. He rushed for 32 yards on six carries as well. 

Etienne led the way on the ground with 136 yards and two touchdown runs, while Ridley had 122 yards on seven catches. Christian Kirk also had 78 yards on six catches. 

For the Bills, Allen went 27 of 40 for 359 yards and two touchdowns with one interception as well. He had two receivers over 100 yards in Diggs (8, 122) and Davis (6, 100). On the ground, though, the Bills couldn’t get anything going with 29 team rushing yards.

Next week, the Bills will hope to bounce back against the New York Giants, who have been reeling early this season. 

Meanwhile, the Jaguars return to the states to take on the Indianapolis Colts at home.