Scobee's 59-yard FG sends Jaguars past Colts
Longest kick in Jacksonville history caps wild win against AFC South rival
By MARK LONG
updated 11:27 p.m. ET Oct. 3, 2010
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Josh Scobee watched the kick clear the crossbar, then ripped off his helmet and started running the other way.
He cut left, then right, dodging teammates all over the field.
They finally caught up with him near the sideline, setting off a raucous celebration the Jacksonville Jaguars desperately needed after consecutive lopsided losses.
Scobee's 59-yard field goal on the final play gave the Jaguars a 31-28 victory over the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday and may have provided the spark players and coaches talked about needing all week. He certainly supplied some comic relief with his victory chase.
"I don't know what I was thinking," Scobee said. "I think I blacked out for about 10 seconds. It was incredible."
It was the eighth-longest field goal in NFL history and the longest in franchise history. It may have been the biggest, too.
The Jaguars (2-2) rebounded from back-to-back, 25-point losses - the worst consecutive setbacks in team history - and handed the six-time defending AFC South champion Colts (2-2) their second division loss.
"Being that it was against the Colts, that's huge for us," Scobee said.
Peyton Manning was solid at usual, throwing for 352 yards and two touchdowns, but his receivers let the team down in this one.
Tight end Brody Eldridge dropped a pass near the goal line in the third quarter. Anthony Smith made a shoelace grab on the ball and returned it near midfield. David Garrard found Marcedes Lewis over the middle for a 15-yard TD pass a few plays later, putting Jacksonville ahead 21-14.
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Reggie Wayne, who finished with a career-high 15 receptions for 196 yards, fumbled inside the 10-yard line on the ensuing drive.
"You don't like for them to happen," Manning said. "You like to have everything go just right, but when they do happen, when there's time on the clock. you have to be able to overcome them and win in spite of them. We just didn't do it."
Despite the turnovers, Manning tied the game with 48 seconds remaining. He hooked up with Dallas Clark on a fourth-and-10 play, then found Wayne streaking down the sideline for 42 yards. A few inches from the goal line, Manning hit Austin Collie for a 1-yard pass, and the extra point tied it up.
Jacksonville appeared content to run out the clock and go to overtime, but when the Colts called timeout, the Jaguars took some shots through the air.
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"If they wanted to try to milk the clock in that situation, we certainly weren't going to allow it because we had enough timeouts to make them punt it to us," Colts coach Jim Caldwell said. "That was the idea."
Asked whether he would handle it differently, Caldwell said, "No sir. Same thing."
Garrard, booed last week and benched the week before, found Tiquan Underwood for 22 yards that put Jacksonville in range for a long field goal.
Underwood was even more clutch on the next play. Under heavy pressure, Garrard floated a ball to the far sideline. Kelvin Hayden broke on it and had nothing but green grass in front of him, but Underwood swatted it away at the last second.
Del Rio then sent Scobee on for the long one.
Scobee drilled it after a timeout to ice him. He has three game-winning kicks against the Colts. He had a 51-yarder with 4 seconds left in 2008 and a 53-yarder with 38 ticks remaining in 2004.
Hannah Foslien / Getty Images |
"I've never been that excited after a kick in my life," Scobee said. "That's the third time I've hit one over 50 to beat the Colts and each one gets more and more fun."
Garrard completed 17 of 22 passes for 163 yards and two touchdowns. He also ran for a 25-yard score on an option play in the first quarter, scoring not too far from where there had been a "Trade for Tebow" sign.
The Jaguars clearly revamped their offensive attack following losses to San Diego and Philadelphia. Garrard threw five interceptions and was sacked nine times in those games.
In hopes of preventing more costly errors, Garrard used a lot of two- and three-step drops against Indianapolis - getting the ball out quickly and not even trying to throw deep. Jacksonville also lined up offensive tackle Jordan Black as a tight end, using him to help on defensive ends Dwight Freeney and Robert Mathis.
Garrard rarely got touched and didn't get sacked for the first time this season.
It helped that Maurice Jones-Drew kept the Colts off balance with 105 yards and a touchdown on the ground. He also had a TD reception, but deferred all the credit to Scobee.
"I don't even know why I'm talking," Jones-Drew said. "I didn't do anything compared to that."
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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