At 4-2 after their bye week, the Jacksonville Jaguars are in a great spot to make a run at the AFC’s number one seed and make sure the road to Super Bowl LXI runs through Duval. 

If Jacksonville wants to finish the regular season as the class of the AFC, it first needs to repeat as AFC South champions. 

The Jaguars already have a 2.5-game lead over the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans and have an opportunity to further their lead over the rebuilding Colts when the two teams face off inside EverBank Stadium on Sunday. 

Beat the Colts, and Jacksonville will be off and running. 

The Colts have already started rebuilding for the future. On Tuesday, they traded a pair of franchise cornerstones in guard Quenton Nelson and defensive tackle DeForest Buckner. 

Even though the Colts have punted on this season, they would love nothing more than to play spoiler against the Jaguars. 

No matter how depleted the Colts are, divisional games are always tough. Jacksonville cannot afford to take Indianapolis lightly if it wants to earn its fifth victory of the season. 

Here are my five keys to a Jaguars’ victory over the Colts:

1. Jaguars must not take Colts lightly: The Colts may only be 2-5 and in the midst of a fire sale to jumpstart a rebuild, but the Jaguars can’t take them lightly. 

Home division games are games the Jaguars can’t afford to lose. They already dropped one against the Texans, although that “home” game was played in London. If Jacksonville wants to compete for the AFC’s top seed, it needs to win its home games, especially against a depleted team like the Colts. 

As long as Indianapolis still has Jonathan Taylor, the Colts are a dangerous team. The Jaguars must treat them as such or risk suffering a devastating loss. 

2. Feed Bhayshul Tuten: Tuten is PFF’s highest-graded running back through seven weeks and should be able to feast on a Colts run defense that gives up 124.4 yards per game (and that was before trading Buckner). A healthy dose of Tuten will allow Jacksonville to control the game and keep Taylor and the Colts’ offense off the field. 

3. Eliminate the penalties: After being one of the NFL’s most disciplined teams through the first three games, the Jaguars have committed 32 penalties over their last three games. Jacksonville had consecutive weeks of being called for 13 penalties in Weeks 4 and 5. Against Houston in Week 6, that number was cut to six, but they came at the worst possible times and directly led to a three-point loss. 

Against the Colts, the Jaguars must return to being the disciplined team they were over their first three games. 

4. Get the pass rush going: One of the biggest flaws of the Jaguars’ defense so far has been the lack of a pass rush. Jacksonville has only 11 sacks through six games and just one total in the last two games. 

Star edge rushers Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker have both disappointed. After each recorded 1.5 sacks in the season opener, they have only a half sack between them since then (Walker).

The Colts just traded their best offensive lineman in Nelson. Jacksonville must take advantage and record multiple sacks in this game. 

5. Turnovers: As always, turnovers will play a huge role in who wins the game. The calling card of Anthony Campanile’s defense is its ability to create takeaways, but the Jaguars have forced only a single turnover in the last two games. 

It’s no coincidence that, in those two games, Jacksonville needed a miracle walk-off field goal to beat the injury-ravaged Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5 and then lost on a walk-off field goal to the Texans a week later. 

To get back on track against the Colts, Jacksonville needs to force multiple turnovers in order to not allow Indianapolis to hang around and steal a game the Jaguars absolutely should (and need to) win.