Paul Posluszny column: The Jaguars are still in the playoff hunt... it's very exciting for us

EXCLUSIVE COLUMN

(Jacksonville Jaguars)

In the latest of his exclusive monthly columns for Independent.co.uk, Jacksonville Jaguars defensive captain and former Pro Bowler Paul Posluszny on his team winning three of their last five games, a run that started at Wembley Stadium in London...

Playing in London was a while ago but it definitely seemed like there were more Jaguars fans this year. It was an exciting atmosphere to be in. It's always exciting for the players to be in that type of atmosphere. We want to create that as a home environment.

It's always better when you win, that's for sure! We played really well defensively. Telvin Smith scored a touchdown on defense and we were able to make a couple of other big plays, so that was great for us.

Last time, I said I wanted to see Big Ben. But I just got to see it from a distance! I didn't get to go and see it up close and in person. Friday, when we arrived, we went to practice right away, and we were also tied up the rest of the day. On Saturday afternoon, we had some time off and I had the opportunity to go to the fan rally which was a lot of fun.

Big Ben is still on the list. Maybe next year.


 Telvin Smith celebrates scoring a touchdown during the win over the Bills at Wembley
 (getty images)

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The Week 10 win over the Baltimore Ravens was an unbelievable game for us. The ending is something that I've never been a part of before. It was a game where we fought hard all game long and it came down to the end, the final seconds and thankfully things worked out in our favor.

Our rookie kicker Jason Myers was able to step up, make a huge kick and win the game for us. That was huge for our team. It was a great, uplifting win.

We came back on a short week and played a divisional opponent, the Titans, on Thursday Night Football and got another win that was exciting for us. We showed that we can string victories together, that we can play well consistently. Now we just have to make sure that we continue to show that game after game.

We followed those two wins with Sunday's defeat against the San Diego Chargers. I think the biggest thing in that game was that we played pretty well defensively at times, but they scored 21 points on us in the second quarter alone.

For three of the four quarters we played really well, but that second quarter when we were inconsistent, we made some mistakes and Chargers’ quarterback Philip Rivers is outstanding. You can't make mistakes against him and expect to win. He was the difference in the game.

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Big plays are something we always try to limit, those explosive plays. When we make a mistake or blow an assignment that's the result - touchdowns or a lot of yards on a single play, and that's the thing that has been holding us back this year.

Being a young team is definitely part of it. The more experience we have, the more familiar we are with our defensive scheme and the more time we play together, we'll start to limit those more and more, but we've got to mature quickly now. Even though we're a young team, we can't use that as an excuse for not performing to the best of our abilities. We want to learn as fast as we can so that we can play at a higher level.

My individual stats may be good but at the end of the day it's about the wins and playing to the best of your ability. Some games you can play great personally but not have a lot of opportunities to make big plays on the field. That's our biggest thing as a team. You have to give maximum effort and play to the best of your abilities, regardless of what the numbers are. That's the ultimate goal. You want to be able to come off the field and say 'I did everything that I could to help my team win'.

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On Sunday, we play the Titans again, two weeks after beating them. They were able to move the ball on us a little bit and their main thing was their tight end, Delanie Walker, who played really, really well against us. He had over 100 yards receiving. So that's one thing we have to be very aware of and have an idea of where he is on the field, what kind of routes he's running. We want to limit that. That's too many yards for one player to have against us.

Quarterback Marcus Mariota will also be a threat. The big thing going into the first game against him, we didn't expect him to run a lot. He didn't, there were only two or three designed plays for the quarterback to run; however, one of them was a long touchdown run. So this time, we'll have a plan for him running the football. We'll have awareness of those situations on the field and plan specifically for those plays.

The Jags still have three games against their AFC South rivals (Getty Images)

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We're still in the playoff hunt and it's a very competitive situation for us, because our record is not great right now but we are very much still in it. That's a very exciting place for us to be in because that hasn't been the case for the organization for the past several years.

So to be where we're at, we know we can play a lot better than we are right now and we'll continue to get better and improve. But to be in this situation, where we're still in a competitive spot and have a chance to reach the playoffs, is very exciting for us.

Each week we will be extremely tough, but if we play to the best of our abilities, we feel like we can compete with anybody on a Sunday.

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The Jacksonville Jaguars are the UK's team having agreed to play one home game a season here until 2020. To sign up for the free Union Jax fan club and ticketing for their 2016 London match-up against Indianapolis Colts please head to www.jaguars.com/uk