Robert Saleh was the first NFL coach to fail the London test this season and pay for it with his job.

Doug Pederson might be the second.

Pederson could well be the next NFL head coach to lose his jobAP

The Jacksonville Jaguars slumped to 1-5 for the season after giving up four touchdown passes to Bears quarterback Caleb Williams in a 35-16 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

If Pederson’s seat was hot heading into the Chicago game, it’s fully ablaze after Sunday’s demolition.

The lifeless performance came just one day after Jags owner Shahid Khan expressed confidence in Pederson, saying: “I still believe in them. I believe in the players, I believe in the coaching staff.”

But the site of rookie Williams torching his team’s defense on British soil might well have finally tipped the billionaire over the edge of his $450 million superyacht.

Pederson believes he still has the backing of his owner, however.

“I do. I was just with him, and I do,” he told reporters at his post-game press conference.

However, he also admitted that next week’s London game against the New England Patriots at Wembley is do or die for his Jags career.

“I think so. I would say everything here on out, quite frankly,” Pederson added.

“If we want to get back to playing the type of football we know we can play, you’re going to have to win a lot of games moving forward. I would say that, yeah, these games moving forward are just that.

“I feel for the players and the coaches. We work extremely too hard to be in this position. I feel like the guys, they don’t quit. They keep fighting.

“We have to figure out how to just get out of our way and just play football. I say that, and it sounds easy, but it’s tough. It’s a tough game to play. We didn’t expect to be here in this spot, and, hey, now we have to find a way to get out of it.”

Jags owner Khan has backed Pederson but his patience may be running outReuters

Jags QB Trevor Lawrence has cut a frustrated figure in the Jags offenseGetty

Khan bought the Jaguars in 2012.

He’s been about as patient an owner as it gets in the twelve years since, getting rid of Gus Bradley in 2016 and Urban Meyer in 2021.

He’s also put his money where his mouth is, handing quarterback Trevor Lawrence a five-year, $275 million extension and making pass rusher $141.3 million Josh Hines-Allen one of the league’s highest paid defenders.

As a result, expectations are higher than ever for a team that suffered a late-season collapse in 2023 and finished with a 9-8 record.

Khan said before a ball was snapped this season that ‘winning now is the expectation’ and “this is the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever. Best players, best coaches, but most importantly let’s prove it by winning now.”

But winning is not something closely associated with Pederson’s current team, who have lost ten of their last 12 games and four in a row to start 2024.

They have the talent, but right now they’re playing way below the sum of their parts and the buck stops with the head coach.

Sunday’s game against the Patriots is huge for PedersonAP

Defensive frailties — particularly against the pass — have plagued them all season long.

Before the Bears game, the Jaguars defense allowed the most gains of 20-plus yards this season (24) along with a league-high 287.8 passing yards per game — making them the 32nd-ranked pass defense in the NFL.

That only got worse on Sunday when Williams completed 23 of 29 for 226 yards, four TDs and one interception – the first pick of the Jags’ season.

They’ve been better against the run through the first five games of the season, entering Sunday’s matchup ranked ninth in the NFL, allowing just over 105 rushing yards per game.

But against the Bears they gave up 152 yards on the ground, 56 of which were to scrambling superstar Williams.

Their running game, one of the few bright sparks about this team, also failed to get going in London.

They ran for a total of 68 yards as Tank Bigsby and Travis Etienne Jr went MIA.

Lawrence, who started the game well, finished the game 23 of 35 for 234 yards with two touchdowns and one interception before being pulled for Mac Jones in the fourth quarter.

He did what he could, and it would certainly help if his receivers could catch a cold.

The Jaguars dropped four potential touchdowns (Gabe Davis; two, Christian Kirk and Brian Thomas Jr), against the Bears, costly errors that have become a trademark of a Jags offense crying out for fresh ideas and a break from the Pederson-Press Taylor axis.

The Jags are crying out for a reset. That invariably comes at the expense of a head coach.

For Pederson, nothing less than a win against New England will suffice, and maybe that won’t even be enough.

Whether Khan hits the eject-o seat-on Pederson before Sunday’s game with the Patriots, or after, is neither here nor there. The Jags HC is rapidly running out of time, and it appears a matter of when, not if, he’s given the boot.