Why Are the Jaguars Still Ignored Despite a Winning Season? Inside the Team’s Fight for Respect

Week 14 in the AFC South shook things up in quite the spectacular fashion. The Jacksonville Jaguars roared past the Indianapolis Colts with a decisive 36-19 victory, vaulting to a 9-4 record and grabbing the division’s reins just as the regular season’s clock ticks down. Yet, strangely enough, this win didn’t steal the spotlight — that dubious honor went to Colts’ quarterback Daniel Jones, whose promising comeback took a devastating hit with an Achilles injury that might sideline him for the remainder of the year. In the shadows of Jones’ misfortune, the Jaguars found themselves compelled to voice a hard truth: despite their impressive stride under Coach Liam Coen, respect remains elusive. Players like Travis Etienne and Trevor Lawrence openly acknowledged this snub, embracing their underdog status with a defiant swagger that could fuel one of the season’s most compelling stories. There’s an unmistakable fire in Jacksonville right now — a mix of grit, determination, and unyielding hunger, echoing the classic “nobody believes in us” mantra that champions like Brady and Belichick once lived by. With four games left, the Jags aren’t just content to hang around; they’re here to disrupt, to command attention, and maybe, just maybe, to rewrite the narrative that’s long overlooked them. LEARN MORE

The AFC South turned in a massive way in Week 14. With their 36-19 win over the Indianapolis Colts, the Jacksonville Jaguars improved to 9-4 and took control of the division with just a few weeks left in the regular season.

Despite the win, however, the focus wasn’t on the Jaguars after the contest. Instead, it was on Colts quarterback Daniel Jones, whose resurgence had the Colts looking like Super Bowl contenders. Jones sustained an Achilles injury in the loss, and could miss the rest of the season due to the issue.

That storyline must have been apparent to multiple members of the Jaguars after the game, because they — along with head coach Liam Coen — used the opportunity to point out that they get no respect for the way the team has performed this season.

Running back Travis Etienne, who rushed for 74 yards and scored twice in the win, made that abundantly clear after the contest, per ESPN.

“At the end of the day, I feel like no one likes us except for us. It just goes along with being in this organization and the way this organization has been for some time now. We’re not going to get their respect. We kind of don’t even care.”

He wasn’t the only member of the team to make that point. Quarterback Trever Lawrence said the Jaguars “don’t get the credit” they deserve. He concluded his statement by saying, “Nobody really cares about the Jags, which is fine.”

Lawrence turned in a strong performance in the win, throwing for 244 yards and two touchdowns.

If it sounds like that might be a rallying point by the Jaguars this season, that might be by design. Coen didn’t exactly downplay that narrative after the win. In fact, he did just the opposite, he fed into it, per ESPN.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever really get [respect],” he said. “That’s the beauty of it. It ain’t coming. You know that. It’s not. And that’s the beauty of it. And that’s totally fine.”

Respect — or the perceived lack of it — is a common motivator in sports. Coaches who want their teams to stay hungry and motivated will often point to it as a way to get players fired up. Often times, it doesn’t even matter if it’s true. Bill Belichick and Tom Brady continued to rely on the notion that nobody believed in them many, many years into their dynasty with the New England Patriots.

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The Jaguars, however, might have a point. Even after Sunday’s game, the Colts have dominated the AFC South headlines. That’s likely to change now that Jones is hurt, but attention is already starting to shift to the 8-5 Houston Texans after they took down the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night.

The Jaguars seem pretty content to play the role of the underdog for now. It’s tough to blame them. Under Coen, the team has quietly surged to first place and sits in the No. 3 seed in the AFC with just four games to go.

That’s quite the turnaround for a team that finished 4-13 last year.