It’s officially a five-alarm fire in Duval County, Florida. It’s bad enough that the Jacksonville Jaguars are 0-3 to start their NFL season. After self-inflicted wounds caused the first two losses, Monday Night Football against the Bills was the worst outing since they played during Monday Night Football hosting the Cincinnati Bengals last season at Everbank Stadium. This has left a storm cloud over the organization as the Duval Devout call for firings and change louder than anything since the Urban Meyer era.

The only cure for this sort of stress and stench? A win to put things back on track in Houston against the AFC South-leading Texans. Here are the keys to how that or further descent into desperation at 0-4 can happen.

The Opening Quarter of the Game

The tone must be set early by the would-be victor. Both quarterbacks in Houston’s CJ Stroud and Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence have been sacked the same number of times (11) struggling with issues from their offensive lines. The best way to help protect a passer when the lines are struggling is by balancing the offense with some runs.

The Jaguars have Travis Etienne who is more than capable of gobbling up chunks of yards while also being a threat receiving out of the backfield. Stopping the run has also been a relative weakness for the Texans. Should the Jags interior line double team former teammate defensive tackle Folorunso Fatukasi and create lanes for Etienne, maybe a play action allows the dangerous rookie wide receiver Brian Thomas Jr. to connect on bombs down the field.

For Houston, Cam Akers is a more than capable player filling in for the injured Joe Mixon. Should the Texans take advantage of defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen’s preoccupation with rotating out players, they might be in a position to break off their own big plays to leave the health-depleted Jacksonville secondary having fits trying to slow Akers on the ground while accounting for Stefon Diggs, Nico Collins, and Tank Dell (if he suits up). That’s also assuming Texans offensive tackle Laremy Tunsil can sharpen up and avoid mistakes as the NFL’s most penalized player.

Trench Warfare

As mentioned earlier, both of these offensive lines are allowing their respective quarterbacks to be sacked at a rate tied for the 5th highest in the NFL (along with the Oakland Raiders Gardner Minshew). But that’s not where the deficiencies in the trenches end — at least for the Jags.

The Texans are 4th in the NFL in team sacks with 13 whereas the Jags are 24th with only five. Considering the eight quarterback back pressures Cam Robinson allowed eight pressures alone of the 23 total on 46 pass attempts from Monday night, Jacksonville needs to do something to give Lawrence more time. Lawrence may be getting scapegoated throughout the national media as a struggling quarterback, but there’s no clear evidence beyond one overthrown picked-off ball by the Buffalo Bills Damar Hamlin that truly supports their statements that he’s the Jags main issue.

Pulling By the Bootstraps

The final key to this game is who better responds to adversity. Both franchises were blown out in their previous game. The Jags by the Bills and the Texans by the Minnesota Vikings.

But which group comes in better ready to bounce back? Houston has an advantage in that they aren’t 0-3 and have shown sustained signs of life during a football game. Nor do they have their fans calling for the firings of the brass throughout their team’s front office as the Duval Devout has. The Texans will be angry and hoping to stave off a two-game skid where the Jags are in a more desperate and despondent state asking far more deep and difficult questions.