Jaguars Get a Victory Amid the Milestones

Two friends reached milestones Sunday night. Only one felt like celebrating.

Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell both passed the 700-reception mark, but Smith also made a diving catch for the winning touchdown to lift Jacksonville to a 17-10 victory over Tampa Bay that sent the defending champs reeling toward playoff elimination.

“I couldn’t have dreamed this any better,” Smith said.

Smith’s 48-yard touchdown catch from Byron Leftwich with 10 minutes left was the decisive play in the victory over the Buccaneers (5-7), who fell three games behind NFC South leader Carolina, and three behind Seattle and Dallas for the last wild-card spot.

“Everybody’s going to be talking about the playoffs,” Buccaneer defensive lineman Anthony McFarland said. “We can’t even think about the playoffs. We’ve got to try to win one in a row.”

The winning catch was only one of the night’s nice moments for Smith, who caught a season-high 10 passes for 136 yards to lead the struggling Jaguars (3-9). In the first quarter, he caught three passes to become the 16th player in NFL history to reach 700.

McCardell applauded from the sideline and, a few minutes later, he caught the second of his eight passes to join Smith at 700.

“I just said, ‘Congratulations,’ ” McCardell said. “We knew it was going to happen sometime during the game. We were just out there trying to help our teams get a win.”

Tampa Bay needed it more but didn’t really play with any sense of urgency. The Buccaneers were outgained in yardage, 359-221, by one of the league’s worst teams. Besides a good performance by McCardell, none of the defending Super Bowl champions put in anything resembling a memorable performance.

Tampa got the ball twice after Smith’s touchdown catch but never got into scoring territory.

Fred Taylor finished with 118 rushing yards and went over the 1,000-yard mark for the fourth time in his six-year career. The Buccaneers fell to 0-5 this season, 1-14 over the last five, when allowing a 100-yard rusher.

Leftwich, the rookie Coach Jack Del Rio considered benching earlier in the week, finished 20 for 34 for 224 yards and a pair of touchdowns, the first to Kyle Brady in the second quarter.

“He responded like a pro,” Del Rio said. “Byron went a long way toward showing that the coach made a pretty good decision.”

The Buccaneers need to win out just to finish above .500, but even that might not keep them from joining last year’s Patriots as the second straight Super Bowl winner to fail to make the playoffs the next year.

“We won’t quit,” McCardell said. “[Coach] Jon [Gruden] won’t let us, and a lot of guys in this locker room won’t let us. There are too many great players on this team to mail it in.”