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Jaguars need to slow down Patriots

Jan 12, 2008 - 12:50 PM Jacksonville (12-5) at New England (16-0) Saturday 8:00 pm EST

FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts (Ticker) -- The Jacksonville Jaguars have shown they can handle the cold weather. Now they must prove they can withstand the heat of the NFL's best offense of all-time.

The Jaguars look to make it back-to-back postseason wins on the road when they visit the unbeaten New England Patriots on Saturday night.

Jacksonville, which is the fifth seed in the AFC despite posting more regular-season victories than three of the league's division winners, are coming off an impressive 31-29 victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers in a wild card contest last weekend.

Despite squandering an 18-point lead, quarterback David Garrard led a late drive that produced a winning 25-yard field goal by Josh Scobee with 37 seconds to play.

It was the Jacksonville's second victory in Pittsburgh in three weeks and marked the only two home losses by the Steelers this season, proving the Jaguars are not the typical warm-weather team.

"They kind of blow that out of proportion, in my opinion," said Jaguars running back Fred Taylor of the warm-weather stereotype. "The way coach - like I said, his philosophy is to try to run the ball and stop the run. They always say in the postseason you have to be able to do those things and it makes for good writing.

"I think it is just more coincidence than anything. We're a football team. We are definitely a team."

That is evident by the fact the Jaguars, despite their impressive record, did not have one player selected to the Pro Bowl until Taylor was named as a replacement on Tuesday.

Taylor ripped off five consecutive 100-yard games to close the regular season, although he was limited to 48 against the Steelers.

Backfield mate Maurice Jones-Drew scored two touchdowns - one rushing and one receiving - and set up a third with a 96-yard kickoff return. Last season, Jones-Drew rushed for 131 yards in a 24-21 loss to New England.

"Two real good players. .. No matter who's in the game, they're both playmakers," Patriots coach Bill Belichick said. "They're both dangerous, however they get the ball, whether it's on a short pass, like Drew did against Pittsburgh. He didn't handle the ball that many times, but he had tremendous production in that game.

"Fred Taylor, you just can't say enough about him. He's a great runner. He's a strong, powerful guy, very nifty in the open field, excellent blitz pick up, one of the better blockers that we've seen in the league from his position. He's a complete player (and) does a great job. It's a strong one-two punch."

Jacksonville has registered at least 24 points in 11 straight games and is the second-highest scoring team in the league in that span - second only to New England, which completed the first 16-0 regular season in league annals.

Garrard, who had a spectacular regular season with 18 touchdowns vs. three interceptions in his first season as a starter, was shaky against the Steelers but made the play of the game with a 32-yard run on 4th-and-2 to set up the winning field goal.

"David definitely has been a guy who has been patient the past six, seven years," Taylor said. "He's definitely been patient and I think the major difference is he doesn't have that pressure of having to go out there and try to prove anything to anyone."

The biggest problem facing Jacksonville - one that faced every NFL team this season - is slowing down New England's offense. The Jaguars will need to be efficient on offense to keep league MVP Tom Brady off the field.

In both games against Pittsburgh, Jacksonville could not hold big leads in the fourth quarter as the Steelers went almost exclusively to the air.

That could cause major problems against Brady, who threw an NFL-record 50 touchdown passes and was intercepted just eight times.

The top targets for Brady are Randy Moss, who also set a league mark by hauling in 23 scoring passes, and Wes Welker, who tied for the NFL lead with 112 receptions.

Brady is 6-0 lifetime at home in the playoffs and that's without Moss, who has caught at least one touchdown pass in 13 of 16 games in his first season with New England.

"They were a great team without him," Jones-Drew said. "It just added another weapon to be able to add another guy like that, a future Hall of Fame kind of guy, to be able to add that kind of talent like that to your team when you're all ready strong. It just makes it difficult to defend.

"They're very good. He's very good and obviously it's just another big weapon that you've got to try to defend."