JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars go to London and leave their losing streak in the United States.

The Jaguars had their best performance of the season on Sunday, beating the Colts 37-34 in a back-and-forth thriller at EverBank Stadium. If the Jaguars ever needed a win, this was the game to do it.

Trevor Lawrence led a game-winning drive in the final minute, putting Cam Little’s 49-yarder ahead as the Jaguars escaped the Colts for a slump victory that nearly slipped away under a fourth-quarter barrage in Indianapolis. It wasn’t easy. Of course, that is rarely the case with the Jaguars.

Joe Flacco picked apart the Jacksonville defense and led Indianapolis to three fourth-quarter touchdowns, including a 65-yard scoring pass to Alec Pierce with 2 minutes, 50 seconds left. But Lawrence delivered the go-ahead goal and Travon Walker picked up his third sack of the game to deny Flacco the shot at a comeback as time expired.

“I think this will also make us better as a team, because it was even the first win of the season. It was tough and it came down to the end, and we had to earn it. All that will increase confidence in the future,” said Lawrence, who celebrated his 25th birthday on Sunday. “I think this team did a good job. Obviously a difficult start, but we kept our confidence. We kept swinging.”

It was a huge early season win for the Jaguars. The team welcomed former head coach Tom Coughlin to the Pride of the Jaguars and won while wearing throwback jerseys from Coughlin’s time as head coach.

Lawrence threw the longest scoring pass in Jacksonville since 2015, an 85-yarder to rookie Brian Thomas Jr., to win for the first time in 11 months. Head coach Doug Pederson has had to ask questions about his job status during the team’s losing skid and put the responsibility back on the players to step up and get results.

For at least a week, all those nagging questions are pushed aside. The Jaguars head to London for games against the Bears (October 13) and Patriots (October 20) and could potentially return home with some semblance of a winning streak.

“For me it’s not necessarily a surprise. I just think it’s a culmination of a lot of things,” Pederson said. “The way we work, the way we practice, the things we do during the week. It was translated today. Proud of the boys, obviously because of the way we finished. Great team performance today.”

Lawrence in particular had to feel good about letting go of his questionable streak. He had lost consecutive starts dating back to his last win, a 24-21 victory over Houston on November 26, 2023. Jacksonville had won just one game since then, and it was backup CJ Beathard who delivered it on December 31. 2023, about the woeful Panthers. Lawrence passed for 371 yards (28 for 34) and a pair of touchdowns, finally answering the critics.

One win can’t erase an 0-4 start that has put the Jaguars (1-4) in a deep hole in the AFC South, but it’s a positive.

Chaotic close

They did that against Indianapolis (2-3), which had not won a game in Jacksonville since 2014, but did everything it could to end that deficit in a furious back-and-forth final quarter.

Flacco divided the Jaguars again, throwing two touchdown passes and setting up a short TD run with a beautiful throw to Alec Pierce. Jacksonville led 34-20 after a 65-yard touchdown run by Tank Bigsby with 5:21 to play, seemingly enough of a cushion to reach the finish line. But Flacco fired back. Pierce made a candidate for catch of the year on a 24-yard sideline jam, and followed that with a 46-yarder that went to the 1. Trey Sermon hit him one play later. The Jaguars followed with a three and out and Flacco connected with Pierce again two plays later on a 65-yard touchdown to even things up.

Lawrence couldn’t have made game-winning drives against the Dolphins, Browns or Texans this year, but did so against the Colts. He said he doesn’t listen to anything outside the building.

“Things like that don’t matter. You cannot listen to the good or the bad. So I think things that will come through, and I’m sure there are a lot of questions. What’s going on with the Jags? What is this? What is that? After four weeks, great, we will use it as a chip on our shoulder and say that to the world mentality and bring us closer together,” he said. “I think that’s what good teams do.”

Offense finally shows some life

Lawrence isn’t the only player on the offense who is off to a miserable start, but he is certainly the most visible. That’s the standard for NFL quarterbacks, especially those with contracts as large as Lawrence’s $275 million deal. Lawrence finally had his breakout game. He was held under 200 passing yards three times this year and surpassed his season high at halftime. The throw that energized EverBank was his 85-yard strike to rookie Thomas midway through the second quarter.

The Colts, who were up 7-3 at the time, held the Jaguars back at their own 15. Lawrence dropped back and spotted Thomas with a decent cushion and hit him on the pass. No Indianapolis player came close to Thomas, one of the fastest players at this year’s NFL combine. Thomas ran a time of 4.33 in the 40-meter dash.

“Like I said, that was a big emphasis, to come out and just finish,” Thomas said. “We’ve had games where we were close but we just weren’t ready yet, so that was a big emphasis for us, to just come out and finish. It feels great to be able to say we did that.”

But it was Lawrence’s play in the final minutes that showed the franchise quarterback can deliver. He threw a touchdown pass to Brenton Strange to put the Jaguars up 27-17 early in the fourth quarter and then took Jacksonville from its own 30 to the Indianapolis 31 on the final drive, beating D’Ernest Johnson, Luke Farrell and Christian Kirk hit. on the drive to turn the field and get Little into position for the shot for the winner.

The defense comes up big before halftime

Jacksonville drove for another score late in the second half, with Lawrence hitting Gabe Davis on a 21-yard strike that went to the Colts 34. Davis fumbled the tackle. Instead of just taking a knee to end the half, the Colts tried to make Flacco get something going and pay for it. Walker rounded the corner and had a sack of Flacco. Josh Hines-Allen recovered and the Jaguars turned that into a 30-yard field goal and a 13-10 lead at the break.

Flacco hit all seven pass attempts on the opening drive, the last being a 1-yard touchdown to Michael Pittman Jr. for a 7-0 lead that felt like an ominous sign. Then they tightened up until the fourth quarter, when Flacco split them for 24 points. Flacco, 39, started in place of Anthony Richardson and was 33 of 44 passing for 359 yards and three touchdowns. Ryan Nielsen’s defense needs to find a way to tighten things up after three straight games in which he was cut.

Big game for Walker

The knock on Walker, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft, largely stems from who Jacksonville passed on to select him. The Jaguars liked Walker’s long-term potential more than edge rusher Aidan Hutchinson, who went No. 2 overall in Detroit. Hutchinson has been one of the best pass rushers in the league since entering the league, while Walker has been good but not great. He had the sack of Flacco before halftime and then dropped Flacco for another sack in the fourth quarter and then the sack to end it. Walker finished with five tackles, three sacks and a forced fumble, easily the best game of his career.

The ground game

Often criticized as a rookie for too many blunders, Bigsby was a huge boost to the Jaguars ground game. He took a short pass from Lawrence and turned it into a 28-yard catch-and-run that almost ended up in the Colts’ red zone. That play set up a 30-yard field goal. Bigsby’s best play came on the ground as the Jaguars tried to stay in front late in the fourth quarter. He took a handoff, made a cut and outpaced every Indianapolis defender for a 65-yard touchdown run. Bigsby finished with 101 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 13 carries.

“Well, I think it’s a weight off everyone’s shoulders. Right? Not alone (Laurens). It’s also a weight off my shoulders. Now you guys can’t follow me for at least a week,” Pederson said.

“Listen, that’s what I told the guys, I mean, as long as they stick together and keep working hard and trust what we’re doing and trust each other. That’s what you see, right? Is it perfect? No. It will never be perfect. But you also have to realize that we played five games. Four of them were one-score games, right? So that’s another thing we have to get used to. These games come down to the last drive or two of a game. And that’s something that we have to embrace as a team, and we have to learn to do that. And today was a good step.”