Jacksonville Jaguars - The 75

JT: The 75

Let’s see how this one holds up? I, obviously, believe it will age well, like a fine wine, but there is always the chance it ages like Mickey Rourke. Time will tell. We are calling it The 75. It was Trevor Lawrence’s coming out party. His signature drive. His career maker. This was the moment he arrived. It was a 75 yard, game winning drive with little time, fewer timeouts, and some pretty damn extreme adversity in need of some massive overcoming. As a Jaguars writer I will always remember where I was when T-Law exploded for the best all around game by a Jaguars QB in franchise history. I was in TIAA Bank watching rookie center Luke Fortner laying on the ball that Trevor Lawrence had just fumbled, thanks to a massive hit by ex-Jaguars DL Calais Campbell. That fumble recovery was the catalyst for Trevor Lawrence’s break out drive. Had Fortner not fallen on that fumble, had the Ravens recovered the ball (essentially ending the game), then this column may very well be covering the moment Trevor Lawrence was relegated to “mid” status. Among the ranks of the Kirk Cousins’ of the world (a career I would take in a heartbeat btw, in case anyone’s wondering). But Trevor Lawrence was the 2021 number one draft pick. He was to be a champion in the NFL, as he was in high school and at Clemson University. He was to be in the upper echelon of the league. He was to sup with the likes of TB12, Aaron Rodgers, Josh Allen and Patty Mahomes, not sit at the kids table with Ryan Tannehill. Trevor Lawrence is expected to be “the top 1% of all [NFL quarterbacks]. The elite. The best of the best.” Dougie P. will make him better. “In case some of you wonder who the best is. They’re up here on this plaque on the wall.” That is where Trevor Lawrence is expected to be, not down in the ladies room on the plaque for the alternates. So when Luke Fortner fell on the Lawrence fumble, it’s not that far-fetched to say that it was the pivotal moment in T-Law's career. Without possession The 75 does not exist (which means you wouldn’t be reading this and would get 10 minutes of your life back. Hey, don’t be mad at me. We’ve established, this is Luke’s fault. Direct your anger accordingly). But for those of you who wouldn’t want to be anywhere else then right here with yours truly deciphering, describing and documenting #16’s ascension to, dare I say, “generational” status, then let’s dive in.

This final Jaguars drive was like number 5, it was alive. Who’s Johnny you say? I apologize, it seems El Debarge has got me a little distracted. Which is exactly what the Jaguars offense was when starting out their game winning trek toward paydirt. It was a pretty ugly beginning to what was to become one of the greatest single drives in Jaguars franchise history. Not just because of its improbable nature but because of what it now represents. Let’s break down this historical journey. Man, I could really use Morgan Freeman right now. With his voice we could turn this article into one of those Oscar winning penguin-type NatGeo specials. 

2:02 was left on the game clock. The Jags have one timeout and 75 yards to go. To put this in perspective T-Law has three career game winning fourth quarter drives. None of them were in the final two minutes of the game and none of them against the likes of the Baltimore Ravens. For a more depressing perspective, the Jaguars are 0-162 when down by seven with two minutes left to play. From their own 25 yard line Lawrence promptly threw an incompletion behind the man with the stickiest hands of the day, Zay Jones. Luckily for the Jags the two minute warning gave them an extra timeout and with that time they devised the following impressive second down play call. Trevor Lawrence scrambled around, got sacked by former Jaguars player, Calais Campbell, and fumbled the ball. Jags center, Johnny on the spot, Luke Fortner thankfully fell on the ball to retain possession and continue the drive, as well as Trevor’s career. At this point in the game there was 1:51 seconds left on the clock, Jacksonville was forced to use it’s final timeout, had thrown an incompletion and suffered a sack/fumble. It was now 3rd down and 21 from the Jaguars OWN 13 yard line, and the stadium was beginning to empty out. They’d seen this show before. They know the ending. I saw an ESPN statistic stating that at this moment in the game Baltimore had a 99.1% chance of winning the game. That means the Jags had a 0.9% chance of pulling this off. Talk about a real life Lloyd Christmas.

Third down completion to Christian Kirk for 16 yards with the clock running and no timeouts. This brought up fourth down and five yards from the Jags own 30 yard line. THE. BIGGEST. PLAY. OF. THE. GAME. And the biggest pass of Trevor Lawrence’s young career. The ball was snapped with 1:30 to play, Lawrence was bull rushed with pressure in his face, and yet without setting his feet (because he didn’t have time), without panicking, he threw a perfect strike to Marvin Jones Jr. on an out route. T-Law let the ball go before MJJ was even out of his break (due to defensive pressure). Knowing that he threw it earlier than he wanted he added a little bit of touch to the pass to give MJJ time to get to the spot. It was, simply put, a thing of beauty to watch. Ironically, this clutch catch was the first of the game for Jones Jr.. I couldn’t appreciate it in person because of the speed with which everything was happening, the fact that the clock was still running and the Jags were moving on to the next play. That pitch and catch, though, contained so many intricacies that it is without a doubt the best pass of that game and possibly of Lawrence’s career. Brent Martineau of Action Sports JAX agrees, and rightfully so, Brent’s a smart man. He states that while other passes may have been just as difficult to place, none others, on that drive, were thrown under the extreme, literally in your face, pressure from the defense. In addition, the weight of that moment was immeasurable. That was the final play of the game, at the time. A tremendous amount of internal and mental pressure existed on that fourth down conversion. Yet, Trevor was as smooth as Hoops McCann shooting the guyline into the mast hole to raise the mainsail after Aguilla shot the halyard with a crossbow bolt. The amount of internal and external pressure on Hoops to make that shot was immense. Remember, Hoops had recently failed to get a basketball scholarship to college. The Nantucket Regatta and the love of a good woman (Demi Moore) were on the line. Man, that was One Crazy Summer. Like Hoops, T-Law didn’t flinch and delivered a first down for Jacksonville.

The ensuing first down was an incompletion to Zay Jones with 1:03 left on the clock. That moved the game along to second down and 10 from the Jags 40 yard line. Trevor took the next snap and promptly found Christian Kirk over the middle with a high bullet pass that Kirk was able to bring down for a 17 yard gain to the Ravens 43 yard line. With the clock running Lawrence found Zay Jones on the same out pattern that he missed earlier. This time it was complete for an eight yard gain with Zay able to stop the clock by getting out of bounds. This would be a good point to ask the question, what good is an heroic ending without a little adversity mixed in? That in mind, I present JaMycal Hasty and his 5 yard false start penalty resulting in a 2nd and seven from the Baltimore 40 yard line 40 seconds left to play. With Baltimore rushing five, Lawrence was able to check down and get the ball off to Hasty on the next play for a one yard gain. Hasty was able to get out of bounds however and stop the clock with 36 ticks left to play. 

It was third and six, keep in mind Jacksonville is 3 for 12 on third down conversions at this point, and Trevor Lawrence threw his second best pass of the entire drive. He found Zay Jones open on a deep route. Lawrence dropped his prettiest pass of the day, threading the needle over the head of the DB and just in front of the safety. It was a dime. The clock was ticking and everyone in the stadium was yelling for the team to run up to the line and spike the ball. Literally, I was yelling it and everyone around me was yelling it, and if they weren’t yelling it everyone was thinking it. Everyone, that is, except the Jaguars. With 19 seconds left on a running clock and no time to even exhale after all of these consecutive great plays, T-Law snapped the ball. Lawrence looked right and dropped a dime in the hands of Marvin Jones Jr. in the corner of the endzone. MJJ caught the ball, tapped his right foot, and then using unparalleled lower extremity shin control, came down with his tib-fib in bounds for the score. This was the third best pass and first best catch of the drive.

There were fourteen seconds left on the clock when the TD play was being reviewed. During the review, I think Doug Pederson made a very sly coaching move. He immediately put his kicking team on the field signaling that the Jaguars were going to kick an extra point, settle for the tie and go into overtime. Never was this Dougie P’s intent, however. He was always going to go for two and get the win. What he didn’t want to do was give Harbaugh and the Ravens that knowledge so that they could use the time granted for the review to prepare the defense mentally for a two-point conversion. Mindset plays a big role in everything. As soon as the review was over and the touchdown was confirmed the Jaguars put their offense on the field. This forced Harbaugh to immediately call a Baltimore time-out. When play resumed, Lawrence found Zay Jones with a literal rocket fired out of a literal howitzer, one yard deep in the endzone to his left. To add context to that 2 pt. conversion, the Jags were two for four this year before that attempt. The successful tries went to Travis Etienne Jr. (sidelined with an injury in this game) and Evan Engram (also on the sideline for that play). Zay Jones won the game with a really difficult catch. It was a catch that will be remembered for a very long time but, unfortunately, will not be recorded in his career high game stats of 11 receptions for 145 yards.

This drive solidified the beginning of Trevor Lawrence’s ascension to “generational” quarterback. He was everything he was supposed to, and expected to be when drafted number one in 2021. Not only did this game winning drive jump start T-Laws career but it solidified Doug Pederson’s position in Jacksonville and signified that this Jaguars team can be the real deal. This historical Jaguars drive is, The 75.

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