Etienne, Jaguars dominate Texans 31-3

Sunday wasn’t Trevor Lawrence’s best day despite the former Clemson football quarterback completing 17 of 21 passes for 152 yards in about 2 and a half quarters of play in the Jaguars 31-3 win over Houston.

Lawrence missed a couple of open receivers early and threw a bad interception, but this game was never really in doubt as Jacksonville scored on their first drive of the game and never looked back to move to 8-8 on the season.

The real story for the Jags was another former Clemson Tiger, Travis Etienne, who had a 27-yard run early, a 62-yard touchdown jaunt later in the first half and a 29-yard reception to cap a 140-total yard first half in which he outgained the entire Texans team by 46 yards.

Etienne took off the entire second half, finishing with 108 yards on 9 carries and 32 receiving yards on 3 catches.

The Jaguars are in sole possession of first place in the AFC South with a showdown scheduled for next Sunday in Jacksonville against the 7-9 Tennessee Titans in a game that will decide the division title.

The Jags continued their remarkable turnaround from a 3-14 season in 2021 as the draft of Lawrence and Etienne and free agent acquisitions have begun to pay off for the franchise.

Former Clemson football quarterback Trevor Lawrence gets a lot of attention, but the play of Travis Etienne has made the Jags offense dynamic

While Lawrence gets a lot of the headlines as the quarterback and first overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, the drafting of Etienne near the end of the first round of that same draft could prove to be just as valuable.

There are very few running backs in the NFL that provide the combination of power, speed and elusiveness that Etienne displays on a down to down basis and with him in the game any play can be a scoring play for this offense.

After missing 2021 with a Lisfranc injury, Etienne now has 1,108 yards on 213 carries and averages 5.2 yards per carry, along with 30 receptions for 267 yards.

For his part, Lawrence crossed over 3,900 passing yards on the season, needing just 99 yards next week to reach the 4,000 yard mark on the season.