Jaguars Preach Patience with Lawrence

JT: A clean slate. A fresh start. A short memory. A chalupa supreme. All are needed for the Jaguars right now. ‘Cept the taco, that’s for me.

Man did they come out of the gates charging hard. Yes they lost to the Commanders but they came back from a big deficit, on the road, and led by eight points in the fourth quarter. That’s something decent teams do. They didn’t look completely polished, there were some accuracy issues, but they looked better than in years past. In that game they provided a spark of hope. Then they faced the Indianapolis Colts, the already anointed winners of this year's AFC South (by literally almost everyone this preseason). This was a home game to extend that odd streak of wins against Indy at TIAA Bank. Head Coach Doug Pederson told us that the Jags made correctable mistakes against Washington and that he was going to coach those mistakes away and make the team ready for Indianapolis. Boy did he ever. It was like a different team had taken the field. The Jaguars completely dominated Indy, shutting them out. The big goose egg. Whether a team has their starting wide receivers or not, it is difficult to shut out an NFL team, period. In addition, when are we going to acknowledge that injuries occur and the second string players in the NFL are still top class athletes, the (second) best in the world at their position? 

Then there was the Los Angeles Chargers game, on the road, in SoFi stadium. The Jaguars had not won a West coast game since before Joe Biden became an elected official. For perspective, he was 29 years old as a freshman senator. Also, I’m embellishing, but only slightly. The Chargers have Justin Herbert, one of the best young quarterbacks in the league. Let’s just get this out of the way up front. I can not buy the excuse that Herbert was injured for two reasons. 1) If you are injured then get off the field, otherwise you’re fine. 2) Did you see that long bomb completion he threw? That was an insanely impressive heave. The Chargers defensive quarterback killers are Joey Bosa and Khalil Mack. Their running back is Austin Ekeler. Yes, WR Keenan Allen was injured (reread the last sentence of the first paragraph), but they still had Mike WIlliams. Bottom line is that the Los Angeles Chargers are a Super Bowl contending team. They were supposed to destroy Jacksonville. They were supposed to do to the Jaguars what the Jaguars did to the Colts. Damned if Trevor Lawrence and his band of merry men didn’t turn the tables and take the Chargers behind the woodshed. The offense put more points on the board (38) than they had scored the previous 17 seasons combined and Jacksonville’s  “Dogs of War” defense made Pink Floyd proud by holding LA to a measly 10 spot. Oh! Oh my, how could I have almost forgotten the offensive line? They were animals. I know Bosa got injured and left in the first half, but he did nothing before his injury. In addition, you wouldn’t even know Khalil Mack suited up for that game. He was more quiet than a church mouse. The offensive line was, as the kids say these days, “fire”. Or, as we said in our day, “too legit to quit. Hey! Hey!” Nothing better than an MC Hammer reference, ‘cept maybe that chalupa supreme. Getting a little hangry over here. “Hey, Ma! Can we get some meatloaf?”

The bottom line is that through the first three games the Jacksonville Jaguars flashed signs of brilliance. They didn’t just flash them, they put them on full display. Weeks two and three was the coming out party. Out of the decades of darkness and into the AFC South division lead. They had the offensive player of the week in Trevor Lawrence, defensive rookie awards, shut-outs, multiple touchdowns. Christian Kirk and Zay Jones were unguardable and MJJ snagged a phenomenal TD in SoFi. The defense was snagging takeaways like it was their job (technically that is a large part of it). Everything was perfect on the First Coast, until it wasn’t. I can blame the weather. I can blame T-Law for the five (ouch that still hurts to type) turnovers. I can blame the receivers for all of the dropped passes, or I can blame Doug Pederson for not running the ball. Hell, I can even blame Jacksonville’s defense, that I personally put on a pedestal (and still have them up there, btw), for allowing 200+ rushing yards. Especially when they knew Philly was going to run the ball. Josh Allen you were out getting that cheesesteak you wanted, weren’t you? I ain’t even mad at you. You told us you were going to get one. But, even with all of that. Even with everything that went wrong in that Philadelphia game, against, arguably, the best team in the NFL right now. Against, not-arguably, the best offensive line in the NFL right now. Even with all that went wrong for the Jaguars, they still had a chance. They were still in that game until the very end, against a team that should have eviscerated them. Like putting O-Town up against The Backstreet Boys. They were good, but you can’t hang your hat on “All or Nothing” and expect to be able to battle BSB. But the Jags did. They battled the Eagles. It can be said that JAX would have beaten them if only one of any number of things swung the Jags' way. So even game four was not a tremendous let down. What it was though, was the loose thread on the sweater that is Trevor Lawrence. He was tightly knit prior to Philly, like a Donegal crew neck Irish Fisherman’s sweater, repelling everything the cold and stormy seas could throw his way. But at some point in that torrential downpour (the remnants of hurricane Ian) Trevor got snagged on something and the thread holding together his game was pulled loose. 

Not QB Coach Mike McCoy. Not passing game coordinator Jim Bob Cooter (Best. Name. Ever.). Not offensive coordinator Press Taylor. Not even head Jaguars seamster (it’s correct. Yes, I had to look it up) Doug Pederson could patch the sweater and stop the unraveling. All week long, between the Philadelphia game and the Houston Texans, an invisible force was tugging on that thread unraveling Trevor’s tight knit game until that fateful afternoon. Sunday, October 9th, 2022, I remember it like it was three days ago. Trevor’s sweater was nothing more than one long thread on the ground. His two week regression culminated in what will forever be known as the worst throw of his entire career. Hitting Derek Stingley Jr. right in the hands, in the endzone, costing the Jags a go-ahead and probably game winning touchdown. Man, we are already a page and a half into this thing and we haven’t even touched on the upcoming Colts game. I got lost in re-cap mode. If we are being completely honest my phone has been looping Backstreet Boys songs since I wrote that sentence about them. It’s a little distracting. 

The point, through all of this nonsense, is that Trevor Lawrence showed us (the fans) too much ability too soon, and now we want it every week. Like the guy on the school corner, he gave us a little taste of what he can do. Jaguars Nation has been jonesing for more ever since. We thought we’d get it against Houston. Some of us (no names mentioned) thought we’d get it in a 45-17 kind of way. That was embarrassing. Alas, we now have to get our fix against Indianapolis or I fear that the warm and cozy fishermans sweater that keeps this entire team together will start to unravel. Since this column is already so long I’m going to make it about Trevor and the need for patience rather than one about the upcoming game. I can do that. Those who have the power make the rules, and while I absolutely have no power, absolutely no power corrupts absolutely, if not at all. So we will wrap this up by addressing the need for patience with our young golden maned quarterback. He has shown us his true abilities (weeks two and three) but he gave us this glimpse behind the curtain too soon. It just wasn’t sustainable. With time and measured attention to detail I have no doubt that Coach Pederson will work out these kinks and set T-Law back on the right path. Let me get a few things straight right now, however. The first being that I believe Trevor Lawrence can play like he did in weeks 2 & 3 sooner rather than later. I, in fact, think he will improve beyond that skill level before the end of this season. The second being that I think play calling and confidence building have a tremendous amount, and by tremendous I mean 100%, to do with T-Laws success. I think in weeks 4 & 5 we got away from the week two and three type of play calling. Finally, I think Trevor Lawrence will grow from the adversity he is currently facing. He will grow from it because he has the absolute correct people around him now to make sure he learns and matures from his failures rather than spiraling out of control. I believe Doug Pederson will apply pressure to the wound, occluding the blood flow and bringing Trevor Lawrence back from the brink (that may have been a bit over the top) but I am light headed from lack of food. “MA! The MEATLOAF!” 

I think we all would have been happy being 2-3 at this point in the season. However, after the Jaguars played so dominantly against Indy and especially LA, we got ahead of ourselves. Suddenly the worst team in the entire league last year was expected to go deep into this year's playoffs. Our bad as fans, Doug. We will have patience, but with just one little, tiny caveat. JaguarsTalk has said from the beginning that all Trevor needs to do this year is not lose the game. That in mind, can the first problem you fix be the one where we don’t turn the ball over anymore. 

In the next column we will dive deeply into the Colts/Jaguars match-up, because there are key differences between this game versus when these teams first met, four short weeks ago. Let us know what you think about being patient with T-Law in the comment section below.