Jacksonville Jaguars' Offensive, Defensive Struggles Pose New Questions for 2015

The Jacksonville Jaguars' 51-17 loss to the New England Patriots may have been what most people expected as a result, but that certainly wasn't the case for the Jaguars themselves, especially after last week's impressive win over the Miami Dolphins.

The team was coming in with confidence and visible improvement on the field and on the stat sheet. And instead of continuing to improve, the Jaguars suffered one of their worst losses in recent memory and allowed a franchise-record 51 points against Tom Brady and the Patriots.

Now 1-2, the Jaguars are at another important moment in the season. They suffered a loss in a winnable game against the Carolina Panthers, pulled out an unexpected win over the Dolphins and now a blowout loss to the Patriots. 

The Jaguars were expected to lose, and it's fine that they did. The Patriots might lose three games or fewer all season, and they looked just as good against the Jaguars as they did against their previous opponents. 

The problem is that this loss looks eerily similar to what we've seen over the past few years: noncompetitive. The Jaguars did a fine job of hanging on to a two-score deficit until the end of the first half, but quarterback Blake Bortles threw a bad interception that set up the Patriots to go up 20-3 at half, as seen below.

Once the Jaguars were down 17 and stinging from what was potentially a 10- or 14-point swing, it quickly became apparent that the game was lost. The defense and the offense looked out of sync and outmatched, which they were.

The Jaguars suffered a similar situation when Bortles threw a pick-six against the Panthers in Week 1, putting the Panthers up by two scores and scrambling the Jaguars mentally. Bortles is going to throw picks, but when will the Jaguars be able to recover from them?

The offense has to find composure in some way, no matter how Bortles is playing. The Jaguars came into the season looking to implement him as a cog in the offense, but it's looking increasingly like the Jaguars are depending on him to succeed. 

He didn't even have that bad of a game against the Patriots on paper, seen in the stats below. But relying on him to make big throws from the start of the game to the finish won't result in many wins. The offense had balance last week, but couldn't establish anything close to it this week.

	Yards	Completion Percentage	Touchdowns	Interceptions	Rating
Week 1	183	55	1	2	54.5
Week 2	273	54.5	2	0	102.2
Week 3	242	51.5	2	1	83.1

That's partly due to the defense. The Patriots scored on every single one of their drives except for the final kneel downs, which is incredibly poor no matter what offense or QB you are playing against.

The Patriots offense scoring 35, maybe 42 points would be somewhat understandable, but not getting a single meaningful stop all game is absolutely brutal. Considering the overall play of the Jaguars defense, the Patriots did poorly to not get into the end zone every time instead of kicking field goals.

The defense has earned the respect of the better all-around side of the football in Jacksonville. That obviously wasn't the case on Sunday, and the blame falls on the players as well as the coaches.

Head coach Gus Bradley talked about not rushing Brady during his postgame press conference, saying, "A lot of his big plays occurred versus pressure. In the past and what we studied him, his percentage went up...and the big plays went up."

Steven Senne/Associated Press

It's fine to rush Brady less than most teams might feel compelled to, but the Jaguars aren't most teams. They don't have shutdown corners to rely on, and the only way they were going to disrupt the Patriots' passing game was by causing Brady trouble in the pocket.

The defense still hasn't found a distinct identity, and that's concerning in Week 3. They need to find a way to play to their strengths week in and week out, and until they do, defensive success will be less and less likely. 

The Week 3 loss is discouraging, even if it's not quite unexpected. The Jaguars don't have time to reflect on what this loss means because they have a crucial game against the Indianapolis Colts next week.

The win over the Dolphins was nice, but there hasn't been a firm sense of direction in any of the three games so far. If the Jaguars legitimately want to win five-plus games this season, they need to find an identity.

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All stats were provided by ESPN.com unless otherwise stated.

Evan Reier is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report covering the Jacksonville Jaguars. Follow Evan on Twitter @evanreier.