JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — It’s not supposed to feel this way when the Jacksonville Jaguars close up shop for the season.

The ache is surely familiar, as the callouses from previous years never hold up their end of the bargain. You’d think each soul-sucking reminder of the past would make the present pain a bit easier to withstand, but even those well-worn memories couldn’t soften such a sharp blow.

So when the Jaguars fell Sunday to the Buffalo Bills 27-24 at EverBank Stadium, they bared their scars, wore their frustration on their sullen expressions and about-faced. The Jags retreated into the offseason while internally spinning through their miscues like an unrelenting roulette wheel that’s captured their spirit.

They cleared out of the locker room early, sauntering through the stadium tunnel like zombies.

It was all still so fresh.

“It will take a little bit of time,” Jaguars coach Liam Coen said. “I wasn’t 100 percent sure what to say to those guys in there because you don’t really plan for what you’re going to say after the season ends.”

The 40-year-old Coen became the first rookie coach in history to turn a four-win team into a 13-win squad. His message after each victory was roundly celebrated in Jacksonville and admired by his peers around the NFL. He routinely exploded through those locker-room doors with the exuberance of a high school coach.

The revelry was always genuine, which in turn made the emptiness of Sunday feel as real as any challenge a game can present. Defensive leader Josh Hines-Allen, who tallied a third-quarter sack of Bills quarterback Josh Allen, ducked out of the locker room earlier than usual because it got too emotional.

“This was one of the first times I felt surrounded by guys who wanted to be great, guys who sacrificed their bodies, guy who wanted greatness from their teammates,” Hines-Allen said. “It was a lot of fun to be around that.”

Hines-Allen instead escaped to the team meeting room, where Coen addressed the media and spoke of love and pride and admiration for his roster. Coen mentioned the culture and the process and all that went into the organization’s fifth division title — an undeniable success after two years out of the playoffs.

“I hope we’ve established a standard of competing at a high level, of mental and physical toughness, of putting the team first,” Coen said.

The Jaguars earned the pride they felt to reach this day. They also earned everything that came with such a devastating loss.

Perhaps some day, if surely not today, that’ll be a valuable feeling, too.

“We hate losing, first and foremost,” Hines-Allen said. “It’s not going to sit right. It shouldn’t sit right. But these are opportunities to grow. I’m going to look at this opportunity. Obviously, we can’t come to practice. We can’t practice another day. We can’t go through another day. So, how am I going to grow and be ready for my team next year? That’s the way we need to look at it.”