It will be a shock if the Jaguars manage to upset the heavily-favored Patriots, but we won't entirely dismiss the possibility. They weren't supposed to win in Pittsburgh either. New England's defense has been soft at times, and Jacksonville's own defense is talented enough to at least make things difficult on Tom Brady and company. So maybe.

But the facts are that Jacksonville's defense wasn't quite as good down the stretch as earlier in the season, especially against top competition. This was discussed in yesterday's Patriots preview. Very tough to hold down New England for four quarters, and will be similarly tough for the Jaguars to consistently move the ball against this defense, which was one of the league's best in the second half of the season. We figure Jacksonville finishes with about 17-20 points, and that won't be enough.

QUARTERBACK: Credit must be given to Blake Bortles. He was very close to being benched for Chad Henne back in August, of course, and has generally been a sack- and turnover-prone mess the last couple of years. And that Bortles is still there, as shown in the team's losses during the season -- Bortles took the vast majority of his sacks and interceptions (14 and 10) in those six games. He was best when the team got an early lead and he didn't need to force anything, like at Pittsburgh last week. But getting out to an early lead and holding it against the Super Bowl champs is an even bigger challenge, and odds are at some point Jacksonville will be behind, and Bortles will have to do more. And that generally didn't go well for him.

The Patriots ranked last in pass defense, but it was a tale of two seasons. In their first six games, every opponent threw for over 300 yards; an average of 338 yards, with 14 TD passes; more than 2 per game. But in the next 10 games, New England allowed just 229 yards, with 10 TD passes (1 per game). Jay Cutler and Ben Roethlisberger were the only quarterbacks to throw more than 1 TD pass, and both of those were on the road. Bortles averaged 230 passing yards during the season, with 21 TD passes. We're going a little higher on the yards -- he'll likely have to do more in this one -- but probably throw just 1 TD. He'll be helped by his running ability. He averaged 19 yards per game during the season, and has averaged 62 yards in the two playoff games. There's no tomorrow, so no doubt he'll be aggressive pulling it down and running with it. The Patriots will be ready for it, as well, but that's production that helps him in fantasy leagues. Bortles threw for 242 yards and 2 TDs in his lone game at New England, a 51-17 loss early in the 2015 season.

RUNNING BACK: New England allowed 4.7 yards per carry during the season; only the Chargers were worse in that regard. So one school of thought could be that the Jaguars will pound away with Leonard Fournette, keep Tom Brady on the sidelines, and grind out an upset that way. Fournette was huge in the win over Pittsburgh, carrying 25 times for 109 yards and 3 TDs. But despite that poor yards per carry, New England ranked 20th in run defense -- below-average, but not one of the league's punching bags or anything. They focused on Derrick Henry last week (12 carries, 28 yards) and you can be sure they'll give the same kind of attention to Fournette. Fournette has some ability to catch the ball (36 for 302 during the season) but more likely it will be T.J. Yeldon getting those opportunities. Yeldon missed the Buffalo game, but caught 3 balls for 57 yards last week. Chris Ivory was inactive, and that might be the case again with those other backs healthy. Note that New England really tightened things up near the goal line. They allowed only 6 rushing touchdowns, fewer than anyone but Tennessee. This defense is very capable of holding Fournette under 60 rushing yards, and chances of scoring don't look great. He'll be the main back, but seems unlikely to finish with good numbers. The Jaguars snuck fullback Tommy Bohanon free to catch a touchdown last week, but that was his only target. He scored 3 TDs (fullback carries and a reception) during the regular season but touched the ball only 11 times.

WIDE RECEIVER: In part due to injuries, different wideouts have led the way for the Jaguars over the course of the year. Marqise Lee was most frequently the No. 1; Keelan Cole was best with Lee hurt the final month; Dede Westbrook flashed big-play ability at times; and Allen Hurns was more of a factor than expected when healthy. With all four healthy for the two playoff games, snaps and production have been divvied up. All four played 50-60 percent of the snaps against Buffalo, and only Westbrook even caught a pass. At Pittsburgh, Lee saw 6 targets and caught 3 passes; none of the other three caught more than one. Lee and Westbrook played the most snaps and had one heavily-targeted game apiece, so they look like the top 2. But not a lot of separation among the four, and none of them have scored in any of their last four games, either. Hurns caught a touchdown when Jacksonville lost 51-17 at New England early in the 2015 season, for whatever that's worth (not much).

TIGHT END: Neither Marcedes Lewis nor Ben Koyack are big parts of the offense. Lewis has caught 3 passes in two playoff games; he averaged 20 yards per game during the season. Koyack caught a touchdown against Buffalo, but just 1 pass against the Steelers (and 5 during the season).

KICKER: Josh Lambo has been excellent this season, but Jacksonville is the team least likely to win this weekend. In six losses, the Jaguars scored 34 kicking points -- under 6 per game. The Patriots allowed just 6 kicking points per game (and only 2 to the Titans last week).

DEFENSE: There's a lot to like about the Jaguars Defense, which ranked 2nd in sacks and takeaways during the season and also scored a league-best 8 TDs. They added another one on a fumble return at Pittsburgh last week. But New England lost only 4 fumbles during the season (only Kansas City lost fewer), and Tom Brady threw only 8 interceptions, so it's a tough matchup in that area. He was sacked 35 times, and the Jaguars had 55, making for decent odds that they make it up to 3. But of the four quarterbacks still playing, the chances of him being rattled into a bunch of sacks and turnovers looks a lot less likely than the others.

--Andy Richardson