Trevor Lawrence Tank Bigsby Jacksonville JaguarsKin Cheung/Associated Press

Tank Bigsby’s dad coined his son’s nickname because as a toddler he would run into furniture, get back up and keep going. That was basically what Bigsby did to the New England Patriots on Sunday in a 32-16 win at Wembley Stadium in London. With Travis Etienne inactive, Bigsby ran for 118 yards on 26 carries with two touchdowns in a much-needed victory for the Jaguars (2-5).

Thanks to Bigsby’s effort, quarterback Trevor Lawrence looked comfortable in the pocket, hitting all the easy throws as well as some difficult passes – including a 58-yard strike to rookie Brian Thomas that set up Bigsby’s go-ahead touchdown run. Jacksonville also got its best defensive effort on the year and Parker Washington returned a punt 96 yards for a second-quarter touchdown. It was a three-phase win for the Jaguars.

“It felt great, just the team coming together, playing complementary,” Lawrence told Steve Wyche on NFL Network after the game. “It was a great day. Obviously, there’s still going to be things to clean up but just to control the game, to do it our way, to be able to have some long possessions like we did, a couple we should’ve finished with touchdowns and points, but overall I thought we did a good job of managing the game late in the second half when we needed to, and our defense was playing great. We just kept using that clock and putting them in position to keep hunting.”

Hunt they did. Jacksonville’s defense shut out the Patriots for 35 minutes and forced punts on four straight drives after New England jumped out to a 10-0 lead. Then, with the Patriots threatening to get back into the game late, Jaguars linebacker Travon Walker – who now has 16 sacks over his last 24 games — dropped Drake Maye for a 12-yard loss to snuff out the Patriots’ hopes.

It was a critical pivot for the Jaguars, who were outscored by the Bears and Patriots 45-16 over the first 77 minutes of Jacksonville’s London road trip. But Doug Pederson’s club was resilient on Sunday, leaning on Bigsby and Lawrence to help grind out 25 unanswered points.

And when Bigsby wasn’t getting the tough yards, Lawrence was finding Thomas. The rookie receiver had five catches for 89 yards, including a 6-yard touchdown reception that put Jacksonville on the board in the second quarter.Lawrence over his last three games is now 2-1 with a 110.6 passer rating, after compiling a 78.9 rating over Jacksonville’s first four contests.

New England (1-6) owns the league’s longest active losing streak. The six-game slide is the franchise’s longest in 31 years. Head coach Jerod Mayo was 7 years old when Bill Parcells and the Patriots lost seven straight from Oct. 17-Dec. 5, 1993. But the Patriots rebounded from that stretch to win their final four games. Perhaps the Patriots have a similar rebound in store this season.

After all, Maye has played well in his first two NFL starts and the Patriots look like a different team than they were with Jacoby Brissett under center. Maye was 26 of 37 for 276 yards and two more touchdown passes, with no interceptions. New England returns to Gillette Stadium next week to host Aaron Rodgers, Davante Adams and the new-look Jets. Jacksonville is looking at an insanely difficult six-week stretch in which it hosts Green Bay next week, then is at Philadelphia, home to Minnesota, at Detroit and then following a bye week is home to Houston.


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By Zak Gilbert

Since his freshman year at the University of Colorado, Zak Gilbert has worked 30 years in sports, including 18 NFL seasons. He's spent time with four NFL teams, serving as head of communications for both the Raiders and Browns. A veteran of nine Super Bowls, he most recently worked six seasons in the NFL's New York league office.

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