The Trevor Lawrence the NFL has been waiting for is finally here as he and Doug Pederson lead the Jacksonville Jaguars into the playoffs and a new era; watch the Jaguars take on the Los Angeles Chargers live on Sky Sports NFL from 1.15am in the early hours of Sunday morning
Friday 13 January 2023 11:40, UK
The Jacksonville Jaguars are humming. Trevor Lawrence nestling himself into era-defining quarterback rivalries, Doug Pederson providing belated ignition to said quarterback's career, and Shahid Khan's NFL baby as assuringly-placed for long-term relevancy as has been the case since he took ownership.
Six wins in their final seven games after a 3-7 start sees them in the playoffs for just the second time since 2007 and for the first time since their staggering march to the AFC Championship Game in 2017, the subsequent 'one step forward, three steps back' downfall from which has contributed to hardship guilty of out-staying its welcome.
For four years they have traipsed through a labyrinth of mess and mediocrity: from Dante Fowler Jr. and Yannick Ngakoue altercations to Jalen Ramsey-Tom Coughlin-Doug Marrone rifts and rants; from debilitating Blake Bortles and Nick Foles contracts to the NFLPA warning players against signing with the franchise; from Ramsey trade requests, Ngakoue hold-outs and the decision to ship a face of professionalism in Calais Campbell, to last season's ill-guided hiring of Urban Meyer.
The latter would verge on 'he who shall not be named territory', minus the magic wand, for null and voiding the rookie year of a quarterback that had been the consensus No 1 overall pick of his class since the age of 16 and the most celebrated prospect in his position since Andrew Luck. With negligent play-design came off-field gunk in the form of viral videos of Meyer with a woman at an Ohio bar after deciding not to fly home with the team following a defeat and the hiring of a strength coach in Chris Doyle who had lost his job at Iowa in 2020 due to accusations of racism and bullying.
Meyer also kicked kicker Josh Lambo, and trialled former quarterback Tim Tebow as a tight end in the early offseason, and reportedly called his assistants "losers" while asking them to outline their personal accolades.
To his credit Lawrence still squeezed out glimpses of stardust, but a rookie year it was not. He finished 2021 ranked 31st in EPA+CPOE composite, 27th in EPA/play, 24th in success rate, 15th in air yards, fourth worst in bad throw percentage and second-worst in on-target throw percentage, while throwing 17 interceptions to 12 touchdowns in a passing offense ranked third-worst in DVOA. He was not blameless at times, but route congestion and layer-less play architecture lowered his ceiling for productivity significantly.
Pederson arrived in the offseason and the Jacksonville Jaguars began to feel like an NFL franchise again, doing what an NFL franchise with Trevor Lawrence should do and treating Trevor Lawrence like Trevor Lawrence. Trent Baalke opened the war-chest to sign wide receivers Christian Kirk and Zay Jones as company for Marvin Jones, along with former New York Giants tight end Evan Engram and former Washington Commanders guard Brandon Scherff.
Sizeable contracts for the aforementioned had initially raised questions and been pelted with ridicule in a fractious Twittersphere amused by Jags hardship, only to since help steer the team to the postseason. Money well spent? Hard to say no.
Their stories became fittingly in-keeping with a disparaged-turned-dangerous Jacksonville team.
You may have heard the tale of the Evan Engram that could not catch, the Evan Engram with butter fingers, holes in his hands, whatever social media circles chose to call him on a given weekend.
Engram has turned drop-prone scorn into pay-day contention as one of Lawrence's most trusted and dynamic targets and the Pederson-Press Taylor tandem's expansive 'go up and get it' lighthouse meets 'out my way' yards-after-catch glider. He finished the year with 73 receptions (career-high) for 766 yards (career-high) and four touchdowns, 465 of which came from yards after catch and 410 yards of which came across the last six games of the regular season after 162 and 113-yard outings against the Tennessee Titans and New York Jets, respectively.
The Titans game threw up the best of his rangy usage: in one instance he out-leapt and out-muscled Andrew Adams in soft man coverage to haul in a chunk play on a simple sideline go-route, on another turned a shallow hitch into a tight end screen, on another he faked a trap block in motion before leaving the outside rusher unblocked and scooting into the flat vacated by double crossing routes in the opposite direction.
Pederson is dressing up simple crossers and jet-sweeps with Engram with whips and pivots mid-route and outside zone counter-flow fakes from Lawrence, all designed to put the ball in his hands with green grass ahead.
Beside him Kirk led the team with 84 catches for 1,108 yards and eight touchdowns with 18 receptions of 20+ yards, drowning out any lingering noise in reaction to the four-year, $72m deal he signed in the offseason. He is the cherry on top of a three-level offense as Lawrence's deep-over threat and outside-the-numbers target, at times teeing up the Travis Etiennes and Engrams underneath. Any qualms over his takings have been eased, if not erased.
In the pilot's seat is the Lawrence the Jags and the NFL had been awaiting, the Captain America quarterback with the 'anything goes' arm and the marauding outer-pocket athleticism and the humbly-conveyed knowledge that he is pretty darn good at football.
Since the Week 11 bye Lawrence has ranked fifth in EPA+CPOE composite (expected points added + completion percentage over expected), fifth in EPA/play and third in success rate across the run of six victories in seven, rising from ranks of 16th, 15th and seventh in those departments over the first 11 weeks.
He would eventually close out his sophomore regular season 387 of 584 passing (66.3 per cent) for 4,113 yards (ninth), 25 touchdowns (tied-eighth) and eight interceptions while ranked 10th in EPA+CPOE composite in an offense ranked eighth in EPA/play on the year. The amateurish environment of last year considered, it is monster improvement.
The lasting effects of Urban Meyer land naturally became teething problems over the first half of the year as Lawrence, Pederson and offensive coordinator Taylor between them ironed out wrinkles and grew to understand what they could do with who.
They landed in London to face an imploding Denver Broncos team, albeit armed with Ejiro Evero's standout defense, and stumbled in the face of a game there to be taken, Lawrence's end zone interception to Justin Simmons a throw he would no longer make and the game-icing pick to K'Waun Williams in the final two minutes a young quarterback forcing something under pressure.
In jumping from a commanding win over the Los Angeles Chargers to a shaky defeat to the Houston Texans two weeks later, Lawrence was undergoing the true induction and lesson-learning veiled by other distractions in 2021. Finally, though, there was a cohesive system in which he could aim to settle. The results have shown since the end of November.
Pederson has gradually seen to unlocking Lawrence's full arsenal. Among the multi-layered wrinkles being his outside zone-into-bootleg concept that shines a light on the best of Lawrence's exquisite off-platform hip-placement, body-control, field-read and precision velocity on the move. It threw up one of his more impressive plays this season as Lawrence orbited from a fake hand-off against the Dallas Cowboys and fizzed a bullet while in stride to Zay Jones for 59 yards as Jacksonville overturned a 17-point third-quarter deficit.
It has been a concoction of roll-out-and-slay West Coast offense with reverse shovel passes into bootlegs and on-the-run dump-offs to the jet-sweep player in motion, it has been counter-flow bubble screens out of split-then-switch backfields that target the space away from the zone blocking, it has been turning to Lawrence as the point guard in empty with 3x2 spread formations with crossers to blunt man coverage.
Pederson and Taylor will give him one, two, maybe three crossers to pick from out of play-action at times, Lawrence's development reflected by the tempered aggression to take the safer shallow option when it is there but also the conviction to pepper the second level should the avenue appear.
For a quarterback of his long and rangy athletic profile, the slickness of his footwork and the speed at which he adjusts his elbow and upper-body to skewed angles pushes the best in the league. With his ability to ping a completion with little wind-up has also come evidence of a much smoother feel for play-development and going through his progressions. The Jags arrive into the postseason with the most confident Trevor Lawrence the NFL has seen since his entry.
Lawrence, Pederson and the Jags are attacking every area of the field, be it by design or in the event of some freelancing shifts when the pressure comes and when the coverage alters post-snap.
The face of the franchise is thrusting himself into the fan-drooling discussions of decade-long duels between the Patrick Mahomes’, the Josh Allens, the Joe Burrows, the Justin Herberts and the Lamar Jacksons of the AFC. The barnstorming battle of the barnets kicks off against Herbert this weekend.
On the other side Mike Caldwell's defense is brimming with apex athletes that fly to the ball with the range to stunt to the quarterback and crab sideline-to-sideline. Foye Oluokun is a wrap 'em up machine as the NFL's back-to-back leader in tackles, Darious Williams' switch back to perimeter corner has inspired more aggression and production and No 1 overall pick Travon Walker has flashed the raw talent of the slippery play-torcher advertised on Kirby Smart's Georgia defense.
Consistency to rival that of other playoff units has been lacking as they finished the season ranked 26th in DVOA, but Caldwell's defense did finish 12th in EPA/play, fourth in pressure rate, 10th in scoring, 14th in rushing, 10th in passing and 10th in total yards allowed per game. They can blow up a scheme on any given Sunday.
For the strides made across their emphatic close to the season, a season of two halves from a team with its notable holes stands to be taken into consideration. They could blow the Chargers out of the water, they could equally be fried themselves. It has that type of feel.
But this is a new mould of Jaguars team. One with the pre-drinks plan they hope will see them last the course at the party.
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