Jaguars Happy but Not Satisfied

The players doused Coach Tom Coughlin with water, the team passed out new caps to honor its AFC Central title and almost as quickly, the celebration was over.

The Jacksonville Jaguars want to win the Super Bowl this season.

Their 24-7 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday gave the Jaguars (14-2) the division championship, a bye next week and home-field advantage through the AFC playoffs, but it wasn’t quite the playoff tune-up they were hoping for.

Injuries to Pro Bowl tackles Tony Boselli (knee) and Leon Searcy (ankle), combined with a lack of killer instinct, let the Bengals (4-12) hang around much longer than they should have.

“Obviously, you’d like to be so dominant that there’s no question about it,” Coughlin said. “But I thought we played well. I thought we did a lot of good things.”

Coughlin and the rest of the team seemed most concerned with Boselli, who was scheduled for an MRI exam on his injured right knee Sunday night or today. Several players said they thought Boselli had hurt his anterior cruciate ligament, but nobody was sure of how severe the injury was. Searcy sprained his ankle.

One thing the Jaguars did well was make Jay Fiedler feel comfortable in his first start. Playing for the injured Mark Brunell, Fiedler completed 28 of 39 passes for 317 yards and one touchdown.

“It proved to myself what I knew all along,” Fiedler said.

The Jaguars failed to take advantage of their huge statistical edge because of their continuing troubles finishing drives inside the opponent’s 20. Five of their eight trips there resulted in three points, two missed field goals and a boatload of question marks.