They had hoped to be AFC contenders, but instead, the Jaguars are the NFL’s most disappointing team

The Jaguars need the new stadium to make magic, because the football team sure isn’t. The Jaguars had hoped to be AFC contenders this year, but instead they enter Sunday’s game against the Patriots at 1-5 and the NFL’s most disappointing team. Jaguars owner Shad Khan was beaming Tuesday after NFL owners voted, 32-0, to approve a $1.4 billion renovation on their “Stadium of the Future” that cements the team’s home in North Florida. The losing isn’t unusual for the Jaguars. The franchise has made the playoffs just four times in the last 20 years, and the Jaguars’ .303 win percentage since 2012, the year Khan bought the team, is the worst in the NFL. But this year was supposed to be different for the Jaguars, their third under Doug Pederson, the former Eagles coach who thwarted the Patriots in Super Bowl LII. This is a team that just two years ago improved from 3-14 under Urban Meyer to 9-8 under Pederson, and won a playoff game. The Jaguars have a supposed superstar in 2021 No. 1 overall pick Trevor Lawrence, who in June signed a $275 million contract extension. And the roster has plenty of talent, from established veterans Christian Kirk and Evan Engram to big free agent signee Gabe Davis to first-round pick Brian Thomas, their new deep threat. Khan turned up the heat on Pederson before the season. “Winning now is the expectation,” Khan said. “Make no mistake, this is the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever.” Instead, the Jaguars are competing with the Patriots and Browns for the No. 1 draft pick, which they also held in 2022 (Travon Walker). The Jaguars are coming off a blowout loss to the Bears, Lawrence is regressing badly, and safety Andre Cisco said there was “a lot of quit” in his teammates last Sunday. Pederson ended last season on thin ice after an 8-3 start ended with a 1-5 collapse as the Jaguars missed the playoffs. Now 1-5 to start this year, Pederson could be fired with a loss to the Patriots. “There are some positives to what we’re doing, but it’s those little negative things that are just holding us back,” Pederson said this past week. “Little mistakes, some mental assignments, obviously the turnovers, things of that nature, that are just keeping us from being a much better football team right now.” The Jaguars are a mess on both sides of the ball. They have the worst pass defense in the NFL, rank 31st in points allowed, and have just three takeaways in six games. But the woes on offense are more glaring, where the Jaguars are tied for 23rd in scoring, but only because they exploded for 37 points in their win against the Colts two weeks ago. Otherwise, the Jaguars averaged just 15 points in their other five games. Sunday’s game features two of the NFL’s worst offenses. “First one to 20 might win the game,” Pederson said. Pederson gets plenty of blame because he’s the coach and architect of the offense. But one of the biggest culprits for the Jaguars’ struggles is Lawrence, now in his fourth season. After making the Pro Bowl in 2022 with 25 touchdowns and just eight interceptions, Lawrence took a step back last year with 14 picks. This year, most of his stats are nose-diving, with Lawrence ranking 29th in completion percentage (60.7) and 18th with an 89.2 passer rating. His receivers aren’t helping much, with nine drops, tied for fifth most in the NFL. Most troubling for Lawrence are the losses — 10 in 11 games dating to last year (he missed the Jaguars’ lone win down the stretch). Lawrence is only 25 years old and still has time to blossom, but this is not the quarterback the Jaguars envisioned when they took him No. 1 in 2021, nor when they gave him the fat contract in June. “Obviously, we need to win a game, but not let that take away the joy of the game because I think that helps you play better,” Lawrence said. “So that’s kind of been what we’ve been talking about and some of the coaches messaging, which has been good.” Last week, Pederson got the dreaded vote of confidence from Khan, which often predates a coach getting fired. “I still believe in them,” Khan told the Florida Times-Union. “I believe in the players, I believe in the coaching staff. I believe in [general manager] Trent [Baalke].” Pederson is doing his best to keep his players and himself in a positive frame of mind. “Even though we haven’t won yet, I don’t want them to feel sort of mentally defeated,” Pederson said. “We just got to make sure these guys stay positive with each other, stay positive during the week. Bottom line is just go out and have fun and play. It’s a great game to coach and a great game to play. But winning obviously helps that.” The Steelers couldn’t have asked for a much better start to the season than 4-2, tied with the Ravens for first place in the AFC North. They’re coming off a 32-13 win over the Raiders, have the seventh-best point differential (plus-38), and Justin Fields has thrown just one interception while completing a career-high 66.3 percent of passes. Yet Mike Tomlin is showing why he makes the big bucks, and why his leadership has been so effective in 18 seasons as coach. While Tomlin wouldn’t confirm who his quarterback will be Sunday night against the Jets — “I’m not going to get into the details of how we distribute reps. It doesn’t benefit us,” he said Wednesday — the Steelers likely are going to switch from Fields to Russell Wilson, who has missed most of the last three months with a calf injury sustained on the first day of training camp. Despite the wins and Fields’s improvement, the Steelers are just 20th in scoring (20.7 points per game), 28th in passing yards (167 per game), and are slightly below league average on third down and in the red zone. Tomlin said Wilson is healthy and spent the last two weeks knocking off the rust. “Justin has been really good, and we’ve been really good at times, but not to be confused with great,” Tomlin said. “This is a competitive league. We’re trying to position ourselves to be that team, and we got a player with talent who hadn’t had an opportunity to play, so we’re going to potentially explore those things.” Fields may be the first quarterback ever to be benched with a 4-2 record, but he handled it like a pro. “I don’t think I played good enough,” Fields said. “I think if I did play well enough, I don’t think there would be any sort of ‘Who should be playing, who should not?’ ” Fields probably shouldn’t relax too much, either. While Wilson should give the Steelers a boost in the passing game, he’s been dumped by the Seahawks and Broncos in the last three years and hasn’t been a dynamic downfield passer since 2020. Wilson probably won’t have the longest leash given the team’s success with Fields, and even with Wilson in the lineup, Fields, who has 231 yards and five TDs on the ground, could be a weapon in the red zone or on gadget plays. “Justin has been an asset to us,” Tomlin said. “We’re appreciative of how he’s taking care of the ball, but we’re just looking at all the people at our disposal the same way that we do at any position.” The NFL must really want Tom Brady involved in the league. That’s the only explanation I can come up with, because it continues to make up rules for Brady that don’t apply to anyone else. Brady was approved by the 32 owners this past week as a minority owner with the Raiders, a deal that has been in the works for more than a year and a half. It took that long to approve the deal because the other owners were concerned that Mark Davis was giving Brady too big of a discount. “If reasonable value says . . . that 10 percent should be $525 million, you can’t pay $175 million,” Colts owner Jim Irsay told the Globe last year. Brady’s final bid wasn’t much different, though. According to the Sports Business Journal, Brady and his investment team got 10 percent of the Raiders for $244 million, $24 million of which is a prorated tax related to the team’s move to Las Vegas. That comes out to a laughably-low franchise valuation of $2.2 billion. In August, Forbes valued the Raiders at $6.7 billion, seventh highest in the NFL, while the lowest team, the Bengals, was valued at $4.1 billion. But the NFL looked the other way for Brady, just as it has with his bizarre setup with Fox Sports. The NFL is allowing him to call games for the network despite his glaring conflict of interest with the Raiders, and will even allow him to call Raider games should the opportunity arise (of course, the chances of the 2-4 Raiders getting Fox’s No. 1 announcing team are slim). The NFL imposed restrictions on Brady, saying he can’t visit team facilities, talk to coaches or players, or criticize officials, but that’s Fox’s problem, not the league’s. The best part for Brady — he’s mostly just the face of the investment group. Knighthead Capital Management founder Tom Wagner is the one fronting most of the $244 million. As for Brady’s role with the Raiders, Davis hinted that it will be more than ceremonial. “Although Tom can’t play, I think he can help us select a quarterback in the future and potentially train him as well,” Davis said. Brady does seem to want an active role in running an NFL front office. His original plan in 2023 was to run the Dolphins’ front office before the Brian Flores lawsuit ruined everything. The Raiders badly need a franchise quarterback, and if anyone knows what it takes to succeed at the position, it’s Brady. But I would caution that just because Brady thrived on the field, it won’t necessarily make him a great talent evaluator. I’m reminded of Dan Marino, who in 2004 quit his job as Dolphins senior vice president after just three weeks because he wasn’t ready for the commitment of long hours and trips to the Senior Bowl and NFL Combine. If the Raiders are smart, they’ll let their scouts do all of the leg work, then bring Brady in for the final evaluation. Sunday’s Patriots-Jaguars game from London’s Wembley Stadium is the fourth of five international games on the NFL schedule this season. To know why the NFL continues to move games internationally, take this recent quote from senior vice president Peter O’Reilly on the upcoming Panthers-Giants game in Munich: In the United States, Giants-Panthers is a bland matchup of two struggling teams that would have fans dumping their tickets and would only be shown on regional television at 1 p.m. But in Munich, Giants-Panthers is a major event — the tickets sell out almost instantly, and the games have several ancillary events in the community related to the NFL Experience and flag football. “We’re trying to think of these games as mini-Super Bowls as we go into these markets,” O’Reilly said. He said that in 2025, the NFL will have at least three games in London, one in Germany, its first game in Madrid, and hopes to return to Mexico City and Brazil as well. But an international Super Bowl is not yet on the radar. One major hurdle is the time change — the traditional 6:30 p.m. kickoff on the East Coast that the NFL prefers translates to an 11:30 p.m. kickoff in London. Instead, look for the NFL to continue to increase the number of international regular-season games, perhaps to the point that it can create a weekly 9:30 a.m. package. “The notion of an international Super Bowl is far from the front burner,” O’Reilly said. “Our focus is on growing the number of regular-season games and focus on strategic markets.” The Browns keep saying, “Deshaun [Watson] has given us our best opportunity to win football games,” as offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey repeated this past week. But they don’t say why. The Browns, 11-6 last year, are 1-5 and sinking fast under Watson, the only team yet to score 20 points in a game this season. Then there was this amazing stat — when Watson completed a 21-yard pass on third and 10 in last week’s loss to the Eagles, it snapped an 0-for-26 streak for the Browns on third down with Watson at the helm, lasting over three games . . . Former Patriots kicker Chad Ryland is 5 for 6 on field goals in two games with the Cardinals, plus 2 for 2 on extra points. His longest make is from 42, and his one miss was a blocked 45-yarder . . . Nick Folk, another former Patriots kicker, who turns 40 on Nov. 5, is still Mr. Automatic. He has hit all 18 kicks this year — 10 extra points and eight field goals, including three from 50-plus — and Folk has not missed a field goal under 40 yards since 2017, a run of 79 straight . . . The season started beautifully for the Saints with two blowout wins, but they have lost five straight following Thursday’s loss to the Broncos, and the defense has allowed 502 rushing yards the last two games. Coach Dennis Allen should probably start getting his résumé ready . . . The new Dynamic Kickoff hasn’t produced as many returns as hoped — the return rate of 32 percent is far below the 50 percent the NFL projected — but the rules are working with regard to safety, with only one player suffering a concussion on a kickoff through six weeks, per the league . . . Sunday’s Chiefs-49ers game is the 10th Super Bowl rematch the following regular season. The Super Bowl winners are 6-3 in the rematch . . . Home underdogs went 0-10 against the spread in Week 6 . . . The Eagles are the only team to not have scored a point in the first quarter all season. The Buccaneers have scored 53 . . . The NFL makes up rules for the Jets, too. The league doesn’t allow players to change jersey numbers during the season, but is giving an exception to Malachi Corley to switch to No. 14 to allow new receiver Davante Adams to wear No. 17. Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com.