The Jacksonville Jaguars listed seven players inactive for Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans at Wembley Stadium, and Eric Murray was on the active list after missing the previous game with a concussion. Montaric Brown and Ross Matiscik were among the seven, while C.J. Williams, Albert Regis, Wesley Williams, Jaylon Jones and Jalen Huskey were also unavailable.
The list came 90 minutes before kickoff in London, United Kingdom, in a game that put the Jaguars under the spotlight as the AFC South leaders. Murray had cleared concussion protocol on Friday after sitting out the victory over the Philadelphia Eagles last week, and his return gave Jacksonville a needed defensive piece for a matchup that was already changing by the hour.
Brown and Matiscik were different cases. Both had already been ruled out in Friday’s third and final injury report, which meant the only real surprise in the inactive group was how the rest of the roster shook out around them. Brown started against the Philadelphia Eagles after missing the Cincinnati Bengals game with a hamstring injury, then missed practice all three days this week. Matiscik was hurt against the Eagles, and DaVon Hamilton had to do the long snapping for the last three-plus quarters of that game.
The math behind the inactive list also points to how much youth the Jaguars were carrying into the game. Four of the seven inactive players were rookies, leaving a thinner bench for a road trip that had already been compressed by injuries and late-week changes. Jacksonville had signed Jacob Bobenmoyer on Tuesday and elevated him from the practice squad Saturday, a move that fit the timing of the long snapping concern and the late roster adjustments around Brown and Matiscik.
For Murray, the timing mattered most. He missed a victory over the Philadelphia Eagles with the concussion he sustained in the win over the Cincinnati Bengals the week before, then was cleared on Friday and back in uniform Sunday. For the Jaguars, that return mattered as much as the absences did, because the game against the Houston Texans was not a distant roster exercise. It was the next test, and the inactive list showed how much of the lineup had already been forced into place before kickoff.
