JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Their team mascot's head caught on fire before the game.

And then the unbeaten Tennessee Titans came in and burned their house down. Again.

For Jacksonville Jaguars fans who have seen this before, it was deja-booooo all over again.

This Jaguars locker room had the same somber and empty feeling that permeated it nearly a decade ago when Titans came here and annihilated the favored Jags in the 1999 season's AFC Championship Game. That loss marked the end of an era for the Jaguars and ultimately sent the team into a demoralizing death dive that got the coach fired and condemned the franchise to years of mediocrity.

For some eerie reason, Sunday's 24-14 loss to the Titans feels like it could have a similarly calamitous effect on the Jaguars (4-6). It all but ends the playoff hopes for this disappointing and dysfunctional team, and if the downward spiral continues, then Coach Jack Del Rio will be firmly on the hot seat heading into next season.

I've been around many locker rooms in my career and this one definitely smelled of a dying team. Death lurked everywhere—in the air, on their faces, in their words. Somebody call hospice.

"This is about as dismal an outlook as you can have," Del Rio said. "We have six games left and we'd have to win every one to qualify for the playoffs. It's a remote possibility."

The woebegone winter of discontent continues. Players have been arrested. Players have been demoted. Players have been injured. One player was even shot and paralyzed.

No wonder Del Rio looked so tired and desperate. No wonder some fans wore bags over their heads. No wonder there were empty seats even though the Jags were fighting for their playoff lives and playing the NFL's only remaining unbeaten team.

The Jaguars are disappointing on the field and disintegrating off it. One of the low points came two weeks ago when Del Rio sent home one of his best players—team captain Mike Peterson—and fined him $10,000 for insubordination after an argument with Del Rio in a team meeting.

Del Rio even took it a step further earlier this week when he demoted Peterson to backup and put him on special teams for the first time in years. Gentleman Jack had turned into Hit-the-Road Jack.

"I don't want to talk about it," Peterson told reporters after Sunday's game.

Del Rio has tried every motivational and psychological ploy possible to get through to his deteriorating team. He's tried being nice, he's tried getting tough, he even tried turning into Lou Holtz earlier this week when he publicly poor-mouthed his team and essentially made it sound like the Jags were not just facing the unbeaten Tennessee Titans; they were facing Genghis Khan and the Mongol invasion.

"Goliath is coming to town," Del Rio said earlier this week. "We're going to say some prayers, see if we can't find a few nice-sized pebbles and load up our slingshots."

Unlike the biblical reference, this time Goliath mauled David—as in Jags quarterback David Garrard. The Jags led 14-3 at halftime and appeared as if they were poised to defend their home against the Tennessee Philistines. But Tennessee, much like that 1999 championship game, came out in the second half, scored 21 unanswered points and then watched the big, bad Jaguars cower like suckling kittens.

Garrard completed just 13-of-30 passes for 135 yards. Is this really what you expect from a quarterback whom the Jags signed to a $60-million deal during the offseason? And whatever happened to Jerry Porter, the supposed big-play receiver whom the Jags signed to a $30-million deal during the offseason? He caught two passes Sunday, giving him a grand total of seven catches for the season.

The most inspirational and courageous performance of the game for the Jags came from team mascot Jaxson de Ville, whose stuffed head ignited Sunday during a pyrotechnic stunt gone awry.

Jaxson escaped without injury and emerged later in the game wearing a bandana around his charred dome.

It's a sad state of affairs when a mascot has more fire on his head than a bunch of multimillionaire players have in their belly.