JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — With its offense struggling to put together scoring drives, the Jacksonville Jaguars turned to their defense to put some points on the board.

The Jaguars used a pair of second-half defensive scores and a late Josh Scobee field goal to send the New York Giants to a seventh consecutive defeat with a 25-24 victory at EverBank Field on Sunday.

With public debate raging about New York coach Tom Coughlin’s future, the Giants (3-9) allowed 22 unanswered points before kicker Josh Brown made a 33-yard field goal to put New York on top 24-22 with 3:26 left in the game.

That’s when Jaguars then put together an 11-play, 55-yard march down to the Giants 25-yard line. Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles had the two biggest plays on the drive. Bortles faked a handoff and then took off around left end, gaining 11 yards and a critical first down before scampering for 20 yards on another to gain a first down at the 25 with less than a minute to play. Three plays netted zero yards, but Scobee drilled the game-winner on fourth down to give the Jaguars (2-10) their first win since Oct. 19.

“What a great game, an emotional game to go through all the emotions we went through,” said Jaguars coach Gus Bradley. “When you look at our team, we’re really excited about what we accomplished. It was not pretty the first half.”

The second half was a different story for the Jaguars, especially with the defense. After giving up 254 total yards in the first half, the Jaguars allowed the Giants just 75 yards of offense in the final two quarters. And the Jaguars defense got offensive.

It accounted for two scores, recovering quarterback Eli Manning’s fumble in the end zone for one touchdown and forcing receiver Larry Donnell to fumble in the fourth quarter that cornerback Aaron Colvin scooped up and returned 41 yards for a touchdown. That gave Jacksonville its first lead of the game at 22-21.

“I saw the fumble, saw the loose ball laying there,” said Colvin who was playing in just his second game with the Jaguars after being on the PUP list for the first 10 games this year. “I scooped it up and my first thought was to turn and try to score. That’s what you do when you grab a loose ball, look to score. There was no one who was going to catch me as I had blockers all around me. It was a great feeling.”

Scobee’s second field goal of the game spoiled a return to Jacksonville for Coughlin, who coached the Jaguars for eight seasons before he was fired following the 2002 season. The Giants coach was not pleased with his team’s effort following the game.

“This was a loss that we feel we should have won,” he said. “We’ve done this too many times. We just helped somebody beat us. Instead of forcing them to beat us, we helped them. Talk to your blue in the face. This team was 0-4 when they lost the turnover battle, it was 100 percent. So we turn it over three times, twice for touchdowns and we get nothing? I mean, it just doesn’t make any sense.”

What the Giants said:

“I think as a player, any time you’re losing games you’re worried about a lot of things. You want to keep playing and win games for your coaches. Guys are playing hard and doing a lot of good things. We’re not at rock bottom. We’re going to keep fighting for Coach and keep fighting for our players. We want to be able to be proud of the work that we’re doing and get that feeling back.” — Quarterback Eli Manning.

What the Jaguars said:

“You try to encourage them. They don’t yell at me when I throw a pick or a bad ball, so I’m not going to yell at them. I’m just going to give them positive encouragement. They’re battling their tails off up front and doing everything they can. There were a couple times where I held onto the ball too long and should have done something else with it.” — quarterback Blake Bortles on the Jaguars offensive line which allowed seven sacks.

“I didn’t feel like we had the energy we needed in the first half. We didn’t tackle very well or move the ball. We went in at halftime and kind or regrouped. It wasn’t a yell session or screaming. I think they needed strength at that time. They all knew that we weren’t playing as good as we could. We said let’s just do this little by little.” — coach Gus Bradley.

What we learned about the Giants:

1. It wasn’t that New York’s defense could be faulted for Sunday’s loss. The Jaguars scored two of their three touchdowns while the Giants’ offense was on the field. Jacksonville scored on a fumble recovery in the end zone and later scooped up another fumble and returned it 41 yards for a score.

Those two defensive scores didn’t sit well with Giants head coach Tom Coughlin.

“We give them two touchdowns virtue of our offensive team, our defensive team doesn’t have to be even challenged. Make people work for it at least. We had the ball in the end zone and we try to get it out and they knock the ball out and jump on it for a touchdown. Do the math for me. Two from seven, trying to make a play. We have done some things that are not real smart.”

It was the first time in Jacksonville history that the Jaguars defense had scored twice in the same game.

2. The Giants need a healthy Rashad Jennings to provide for a potent ground attack. Jennings was slowed in the second half when an ankle injury held him to 26 yards in seven carries, including just one carry in the fourth quarter. In the first half, Jennings plowed through his former team’s defense for 65 yards in 19 carries including a pair of touchdown runs.

Jennings said the Giants just weren’t the same team in the final 30 minutes that they showed in the opening half.

“We came out in the second half and we were just flat and that’s not us,” Jennings said. “I don’t care who you are playing, you’re not going to win. We have too much talent on this team so we should be held to a higher standard.”

After gaining 254 total yards and scoring three touchdowns on their first three possessions of the game, the Giants offense stalled in the second half. They put just three points on the scoreboard and had 75 total yards in the third and fourth quarters.

–TE Larry Donnell was upended after catching a short pass early in the fourth quarter with the Giants holding a 21-16 lead. Donnell came down and would have landed on his head had he not put his hand out to soften the landing. But in the process the ball came free and Jaguars cornerback Aaron Colvin scooped it up and returned it 41 yards for a score.

“I have to find a way to hold on to the football and that hurt us right there,” Donnell said. “I can’t even process it right now at this point. I’m mad about the loss. I have to take care of the ball and do my job.”

Donnell had a critical fumble in a loss to the Dallas Cowboys earlier this season.

–WR Odell Beckham turned in another strong showing Sunday.

One week after coming up with a spectacular catch in the Dallas game, Backham was impressive with grabbed seven of the eight passes directed his way, good for 90 yards. He also returned five punts for 48 yards, including a 23-yard return. But afterwards, he was more concerned about the Giants not maintaining a 21-0 lead midway through the second quarter.

“We should have put the pedal to the metal and kept going at them instead of trying to strategize and things like that,” he said. “I think we could have done a better job at moving forward. We have to finish our game.”

–RB Rashad Jennings had mixed emotions in returning to Jacksonville to face the Jaguars, a team he played for from 2009-12. Jennings never did earn a starting position with the Jaguars, serving primarily as a backup to Maurice Jones-Drew while they were both with the team those years. He was not resigned by the Jaguars when his contract ran out in 2012 but said he doesn’t hold any ill feelings toward the club.

“None whatsoever,” Jennings said. “They treated me very professionally here and I enjoyed my time with the Jaguars. It felt different today. Obviously a different locker room, and the stadium brought back some memories. But when you get out on the field with the national anthem, it’s just football again. I appreciate the people here in the organization giving me a chance as a rookie so I have nothing but respect.”

What we learned about the Jaguars:

1. The Jaguars are full of veterans on defense and have an offense dominated by first and second-year players. Needless to say, the defense needs to set the standard. It did so Sunday by scoring a pair of touchdowns, the first time in franchise history that this has happened.

“I tip my hat to our defense every week,” said wide receiver Cecil Shorts. “They’ve been strong consistently for us all year. They set the tone and today they gave us a lift with those two scores. We’ve got to get the offense playing on the same consistent level that the defense is.”

The Jaguars start eight rookies or second-year players on offense while only one rookie started on defense Sunday. That was linebacker Telvin Smith who has started half a dozen games at linebacker this season.

2. The offense goes as Blake Bortles goes. The rookie quarterback continues to struggle since earning the starting position in week 3. While Bortles did not throw an interception for the first time in the 10 games he’s played in, his 194 yards passing marked the third time that he’s thrown for less than 200 yards in a game this year. He’s only had one game over 300 yards through the air and his touchdowns-to-interceptions is still well-below standards at 9-15.

“You’ve got to overcome personal miscues at the quarterback position at times to be able to win games,” Bortles said. “You’re not always going to play good or as well as you want to, but you have to play well enough to put your team in a winning position. I think we did that today and obviously came out with the outcome we were looking for.”

Bortles’ final numbers were 21-of-35 for 194 yards and one score with a rating of 84.7. His completion percentage for the season is just over 62 percent.

–DE Andre Branch finally returned to action after missing the last four games due to a groin injury. Branch didn’t start Sunday against the Jaguars but saw plenty of time in the first half until he suffered a similar groin injury. That put him on the sidelines for the entire second half and left his status for the final four games of the season up in the air. Branch had enjoyed one of his finest seasons, recording three sacks, forcing two fumbles and recovering a fumble in the seven games that he played in before suffering the groin injury late in the game against Cleveland.

–DT Sen’Derrick Marks has become the Jaguars leader on defense. He was credited with two more sacks in Sunday’s game with the Giants and now has seven on the year. That matches his total that he had in his first five seasons in the league, four with Tennessee and last year with the Jaguars. His sack of Giants quarterback Eli Manning also resulted in a fumble in the closing seconds of the game and prevented Manning from staging a Giants comeback.

“If our offense is going to struggle at times, we’re going to need to pick up that slack whether it’s holding the team to zero or whether it’s scoring on defense,” Marks said. “We’ve got to continue to do that day in and day out.”

–PK Josh Scobee has had three field goals blocked this year and had a fourth, from 50 yards out, sail wide left. But Scobee had just positive thoughts in his mind when he lined up for what would be a successful game-winner from 43 yards out with 28 seconds left in the game on Sunday.

“I wasn’t even thinking about those missed kicks from earlier this year,” the veteran said. “We’ve had a couple mistakes that proved costly in having the kicks blocked this season, but we think we’ve corrected that and it’s all behind us now. I just concentrated on doing my job and hitting the ball squarely.”

It was the second successful field goal for Scobee in the game. He only attempted and converted one PAT however as the Jaguars twice went for two-point conversions. They failed on both attempts.