Maurice Jones-Drew, Jacksonville's best offensive weapon was on a carries limit in the opener. He is coming off surgery Jones-Drew got 24 carries. Other Jaguars backs got 18. It was somewhat striking, though, that in the final seventeen minutes of the game, he got only three of the nine handoffs the Jaguars made. They burned most of his carries early.
The Jaguars are probably smart to think of their best player's future. It is a long season, and the hits add up. In some ways, they were a victim of their own success. They ran the ball well enough to hold it for almost forty minutes, meaning they had to give a lot of handoffs.
If Jones-Drew is going to be on a limit, it was somewhat surprising, though, to see Jacksonville not get the other backs involved earlier so MoJo could get more touches down the stretch when the game was decided. His workload bears watching Sunday. It will be interesting to see whether the Jacksonville coaching staff turns to other backs sooner.