London Games’ Success is Proof of UK’s Strong Appetite for the NFL

The final contest of the 2024 NFL London Games took place at a cloudy Wembley Stadium where the New England Patriots faced up against the ‘home team’ Jacksonville Jaguars, with both desperately needing to win to salvage what is left of their woeful seasons after seven weeks of the season.

The Patriots got off to a hot start with rookie quarterback Drake Maye finding JaMycal Hasty for a 16-yard touchdown on the first drive of the game, but it was all Trevor Lawrence, Tank Bigsby, and Jacksonville from then on, with the Jaguars eventually cruising to a 32-16 victory.

This sees the Floridian outfit return stateside with just their second win on the year, while New England return back to Boston with a lowly 1-6 record – the worst in the league.

But perhaps the biggest takeaway from the London Games series this year is that American football is continuing to grow to the masses, exemplified by an NFL London record 86, 651 fans packed inside Wembley, and looks set to only grow even further.

Jaguars Run Riot at Wembley

Trevor Lawrence and Tank Bigsby combined for 311 yards

The Patriots may have marched down the field for a touchdown on the game’s very first drive, but from then on, Lawrence carried the Jaguars on his back, with the help of second-year running back, Bigsby.

The Jags entered their last of two London outings with a huge amount of pressure on them to get a win, having only recorded just the lone win against the Indianapolis Colts in week five, with Lawrence having struggled to get going early on in the season.

But the Clemson alum would use his arm early on – and the Jaguars needed him to be accurate – airing out a 58-yard strike down the middle finding Brian Thomas Jr. which put them within a yard of the red zone trailing by three with 5:34 left in the first half in what was the biggest passing play of the game.

But it was Parker Washington who had the biggest highlight play of the contest, returning a Patriots punt for 96 yards and the touchdown just before half-time – setting a franchise record – and sending the Jaguars into a much-needed 22-10 lead at half-time.

The second half was less back-and-forth, with just the field goal scored by kicker Kam Little on the board entering the fourth period.

But, the Patriots would come up big on defense, stopping a 4th and 1 from their own six-yard line with just 11 minutes left on the clock.

From the Jags’ turnover on downs, Maye attempted to reignite his offense, completing back-to-back 30-plus-yard deep shots down the field to put the Patriots into the redzone. He would follow that up with a 22-yard throw out of the shotgun to KJ Osborn on 3rd and 15 for the touchdown to bring them within two possessions, after they failed to complete the two-point conversion.

But Bigsby would put a stop to any Patriots hope of a comeback, finishing the game with 118 yards and two touchdowns off of 26 carries, and with Lawrence also finishing the game having thrown 15-of-20 of his passes for 193 yards and a touchdown, head coach Doug Pederson may find the pressure has come off of his shoulders a little bit, with the uncertainty surrounding the safety of his job as head coach.

Atmosphere Is Beginning to Shift in London

Fans appear to beginning to get behind the teams playing in the overseas contests much more

With the London slate of games now in the books for another season, one standout takeaway was the atmosphere in and around the stadiums.

The first two games were held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which was built with the NFL in mind, and features a retractable pitch in order to seamlessly switch between the two different surfaces for both football and American football.

With both the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears named as the home teams for their outings against the New York Jets and Jaguars, respectively, there was an incredible amount of ‘home support’ for those two sides.

While their atmospheres weren’t an exact replica of both the U.S. Bank Stadium and Soldier Field, at times it felt like it was the closest it has ever been.

This perhaps couldn’t be exemplified any more than when the Jaguars scored a consolation touchdown late in the fourth of their 35-16 blowout loss to the Bears, with the 61,000-strong crowd going absolutely silent. It truly felt like out of those 61,000 in attendance, 60,000 of them were Bears fans.

A similar thing could be said for the Vikings, with the SKOL chant ringing – and echoing – loud around Enfield.

In front of 86,000 fans at Wembley, there was a lot of love for the Jaguars, who have made London their home over the past decade, and the players were met with a flurry of teal flags being waved when they entered the field, with the energy never really dipping throughout the entire contest.

Almost gone are the days when you would look around an NFL stadium in London and see all 32 teams from around the league represented high up in the bleachers, with it appearing that more fans are choosing to represent and get behind the teams that have flown over the pond to play.

While this will never be fully eradicated – and it shouldn’t be due to its role in helping promote the growth of the game – the atmosphere generated in a stadium when it is filled with support for the two teams on the field makes for arguably a much more enjoyable contest.

Perhaps it is a sign of where things may be heading, though, with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell hoping to bring the NFL to even more countries around the world over the next few years.

But with a new buzz and energy surrounding these international games, and with a surplus of 208,000 people attending across all three match-days, American football will only grow from strength-to-strength globally in terms of engagement and even participation, and at the end of the day, that has been the league’s goal all along.

All statistics courtesy of NFL.com unless stated otherwise.

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