Reversal of Fortune Needed for 2025 Jaguars vs NFC West

With faith and hope happening in the offseason for the fanbase and the football offices in Northern Florida, all eyes are on James Gladstone, Liam Coen, Trevor Lawrence and essentially anybody and everybody sporting the teal and black.

But that requires a reversal of fortune, and the schedule threw a curveball at Jacksonville, with the division up next in the rotation as one that the Jags have struggled greatly against since their inception in 1995.

Per usual, the schedule in 2025 follows the same formula it usually does by playing every team in their division, as always, for a total of six games. They also have the entire AFC West and the other conference teams that placed third, the NFC South's third place finishers, the Carolina Panthers, and the NFC West.

Historically, they have struggled with the division, and doing so this year in San Francisco during Week 4, back-to-back games vs. Seattle and the L.A. Rams at home in Weeks 6 and 7, then finally, Week 12 at the Arizona Cardinals in Glendale.

Despite winning the first two meetings of the clubs at home, the "big cats" haven't vanquished San Fran in their following five meets, and sport a disappointing record of 2-5 against the 49ers. This year, the game is only in the Golden State for the third time, and hopefully it will be a charm against Kyle Shanahan's club, one that is expected to rebound after a rough 6-11 campaign.

Fortunes against St. Louis/Los Angeles were even worse since first playing the Rams in 1996. In six games, the Jaguars only managed a win once, an overtime affair in 2009, to go 1-5. It's going to take maximum effort at home in Week 6 against the 10-7 NFC West Champs this year. Ditto the next week at home against another ten-win club, the Seahawks. Seattle has won six-of-nine against "Duval's Finest".

Finally, it's the 8-9 Arizona Cardinals, the final NFC West dwellers the Jags encounter. Here's another team, like San Fran, that fell to J-Ville their first two challenges and defeated them ever since. The Jags haven't beaten them in 20 seasons, and the Cards doubled their Week 12 opponent's win total in 2024, despie being a sub-.500 team.

Again, three of the first seven games are against the teams that the Jags struggled the most with at a combined record of 6-16 in a division in which they went 8-20. Liam Coen has a clean slate, though, and Jacksonville needs to come through against the NFC West, should that slate not get stained and ruined early on.

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