There’s an old adage in coaching that you’ve got to have a short memory if you want success in the NFL, but I reject that sentiment. True greatness is attained by having a particular kind of hyperawareness and focus—and for quarterbacks and head coaches, creating a long catalog of plays that work, knowing how your opponents will try to attack you, and being able to adapt when things go wrong.
These are the kinds of qualities we once broadly assumed were shared by Trevor Lawrence and Doug Pederson. In 2021, the consensus opinion was that Lawrence was the best quarterback prospect to enter the NFL since Andrew Luck. He had three consecutive trips to the College Football Playoff, a national title, more than 10,000 passing yards in college, and all the physical traits a coach could ask for, and anyone doubting his trajectory to NFL superstardom was dismissed as delusional.
Lawrence had a uniquely poor rookie experience amid the dysfunction of the (brief) Urban Meyer era in Jacksonville. Pederson arrived in 2022, and fans hoped that he would be a steadying force for a franchise in turmoil. Many expected that, with his experience working with quarterbacks and calling plays in Philadelphia, he’d be able to create a modern style of offense in Jacksonville that would accentuate Lawrence’s strengths as a passer.
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Now in their third season together, things have all fallen apart for both quarterback and coach. Lawrence is on pace for his worst year yet, Pederson is firmly in the hot seat, and the Jaguars are adrift. They have won only one game since last December (a game Lawrence missed with an injury), and they are the NFL’s only winless team this season. Talent is not the issue in Jacksonville. The Jaguars have problems with execution and consistency, and it seems like everyone in this franchise has forgotten what made it successful in 2022 and through the first three months of last season, when the Jaguars started 8-3.
Organizational failures like this one are typically the result of several factors, but we should start with Lawrence. He has often been given the benefit of the doubt in the first years of his career because of the disaster that was the Meyer tenure and our predraft beliefs, but it’s time for him to be held accountable for his part in the offense’s issues.
What Happened to the Trevor Lawrence We Knew?
Quarterback development is a nonlinear process even for the best prospects, but it’s still hard to square what we saw from Lawrence earlier in his NFL career with what we’re seeing now. His performances have always tended to run hot and cold, but when he was a younger player, impressive plays happened more often—and his execution of the more mundane parts of quarterback play was far more consistent. Take the play below from Jacksonville’s 25-20 win over Buffalo last season as an example of Lawrence’s flawless handling of a zone blitz. He calmly gets the ball to Calvin Ridley on a comeback route, even with an unblocked rusher bearing down on him. When Lawrence operates with this level of calm and assurance, he has the arm talent to throw accurately outside the numbers.
Both the data and the film suggest that Lawrence is regressing this season when it comes to handling the blitz. When facing extra rushers this year, he currently has his lowest completion percentage, lowest yards per attempt average, and lowest success rate while being blitzed of any season in the Pederson era. He’s thrown for just 145 yards, has no touchdowns, and has taken three sacks against the blitz.
His 46.4 percent completion rate, 145 yards, and three sacks are the worst he’s had in the first four weeks of a season since his rookie year. Take last week’s loss to Houston, when Lawrence was faced with a blitz in the same part of the field as the Buffalo play last season. This time, the Texans are playing man coverage on the back end. Lawrence immediately finds an easy answer to beat the rush: a one-on-one opportunity for rookie receiver Brian Thomas Jr. Jacksonville’s offensive line picks up the extra rushers and the pocket is clean, but Lawrence sails the pass over Thomas’s head and out of bounds—the kind of inaccuracy that football fans ridicule less esteemed quarterbacks about.
Lawrence’s accuracy while throwing on the move has taken a big hit, too. That was one of the best (and one of my favorite) qualities of his game going back to his time at Clemson. His balance, agility, and footwork helped him create launch points for his throws that opened up windows most quarterbacks his size can’t hit. This bootleg in a 2023 win over the Texans is a great example of all his physical traits in action. Lawrence is able to change direction quickly, he has the burst to escape pressure, and his balance and dexterity allow him to generate enough velocity to fit the ball into a tight window. This is how a great athlete gets out of trouble and creates offense out of structure.
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that the guy in that clip, a quarterback who went from dead in the water to moving the chains, is the same guy in this play last week, who double-clutched when he saw single coverage, missed the throwing window on an in-breaker, and bailed out of the pocket, seemingly without a plan for how to salvage the play.
We may excuse him for holding the ball and looking for a throw given that it was third down, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. Even if we acknowledge that he wasn’t a perfect quarterback earlier in his career, we’ve never seen him have such a hard time finding down-to-down success, especially in clean pockets. This season is still Lawrence’s worst in terms of success rate even when he isn’t pressured, and he’s currently 25th among the 32 quarterbacks with at least 50 unpressured dropbacks this year. Frankly, his play on a per-snap basis isn’t at the level of a viable starter, let alone competitive enough to stand toe to toe with the best in this league.
Totally on Trevor: Taking Sacks
The most troubling part of Lawrence’s regression this season is how many of Jacksonville’s negative plays appear to primarily be his fault—a direct result of his poor pocket management. There have been 37 active quarterbacks with 500 or more dropbacks since 2021 (when Lawrence entered the league), and he’s taken the seventh-most sacks of that group. His inability to avoid negative plays (or his propensity for making bad plays worse) is an issue he has to own. The film makes it clear that this is the biggest obstacle keeping Lawrence from operating more efficiently in the pocket.
Let’s start with the clip above, one of four sacks Lawrence took in a 47-10 blowout loss to Buffalo last month. The Bills are running a simulated pressure, creating an unconventional Cover 3 look by blitzing slot corner Cam Lewis and dropping edge rusher A.J. Epenesa into coverage. Lawrence recognizes the safety rotation and the appearance of a blitz, and he looks to throw into a hole in the coverage or to a wide receiver in position to win a one-on-one. But both receivers are covered, so the progression asks the quarterback to scan his eyes back to the middle of the field and throw to the receiver running a dig route—or, as a last resort, check the ball down to the receiver on the shallow cross. The decision Lawrence should have made here is obvious (especially since it was a first down): take the easy checkdown to keep the offense in rhythm. Lawrence spins out of the pocket instead and tries to reset his feet to throw, but all of his receivers are moving away from him. This kind of indecision leads to drive-killing sacks or throws into coverage, and it’s not the only of its kind that we’ve seen from Lawrence.
Lawrence has always preferred to play aggressively; it’s one of the better parts of his game and remains so now, even in the midst of this season’s disastrous start. Still, there’s a fine balance he needs to find between knowing when to be aggressive and when persevering leaves him vulnerable to taking costly sacks. One of Lawrence’s four sacks against Cleveland, in the clip below, came on a designed shot play. It looks like Jacksonville is trying to put stress on the middle of the Cleveland defense by calling play-action and running the receivers on a deep crosser and a post route. The Browns don’t take the bait, though, and instead of dumping the ball off to the running back in the flats, Lawrence stares down a clearly covered route and gives defensive tackle Quinton Jefferson time to get into the pocket and take him down.
It’s important to note that these sacks aren’t the result of muddy pockets or unblocked rushers, although there’s plenty of that on tape for the coaching staff to address schematically. Lawrence plays with bad eyes at times, and the way he hesitates to throw to open receivers and stares down covered ones is confounding because these habits are incongruent with his pre-snap acumen. Lawrence typically does a good job of identifying potential blitzers and coverage rotations and knowing how to adjust the offense in response. But more and more, he’s making the wrong decisions post-snap. If the Jaguars and Lawrence are going to turn things around, we’ll need to see more plays like this one from last week, which shows Lawrence’s ability to diagnose coverage and manage protections.
Houston is throwing a “double mug” look (with two linebackers standing at the line of scrimmage) at Jacksonville before the snap, trying to confuse the offensive line. Lawrence adjusts the protection call to have his offensive linemen pick up the most dangerous rushers (in this case, the defensive linemen) and get the running back to work with the center to sort out which potential blitzers are coming. It’s an excellent job from Lawrence, and he adds a great throw in the middle of the field to move the chains—with the pocket closing in around him. This is a bit reductive, but it’s honest: A passer with the capacity to deliver in those kinds of situations is held to a high standard, and knowing that Lawrence is capable of this makes his missteps doubly vexing.
Inaccuracy and Bad Decisions
If there’s reason for optimism about Lawrence, it begins with how effective he still is as a deep passer, even though he’s had some high-profile misses this season. Calling him a good deep passer doesn’t do it justice. Lawrence has had the third-most passing attempts of 20-plus air yards since he entered the league—tied with Russell Wilson, and behind Derek Carr and Josh Allen—and his nine completions of at least 20 yards in 2024 are tied for first.
In a season that has so far been defined by deflated passing numbers across the league, Lawrence is one of the only guys willing to take those deep chances. Lawrence is completing 43 percent of his passes of 20-plus air yards and ranks fourth in total expected points added on those passes, behind Sam Darnold, Brock Purdy, and Patrick Mahomes. One of those quarterbacks is arguably the most gifted ever, and the other two are playing in QB-friendly systems and surrounded by the type of receiving talent Lawrence doesn’t have. A deep post throw against Cleveland in Week 2 is a showcase of Lawrence’s arm talent and what he can do with his eyes when he’s in rhythm:
Coming out of the play fake, Lawrence immediately peeks at the cornerback opposite the post and scans his eyes to the safety in the middle of field, forcing the Browns to cover receiver Christian Kirk on his deep crossing route. Once Cleveland’s safety takes the bait, Lawrence uncorks a beautiful deep ball, giving Thomas a chance to run underneath and beat the defender to the ball. I believed that Lawrence would thrive in a play-action-heavy deep passing game in the NFL—and snaps like this spark the same kind of hope I had for him as a draft prospect.
The issue is, once again, that Lawrence is failing to do any of these things consistently in 2024, and he’s struggling on what should be easier throws. Lawrence’s 63.4 percent completion rate on passes of 10 or fewer air yards is the worst he’s had through four weeks in his career.
It gets worse, too: On passes from 10 to 19 air yards, he’s completing less than 40 percent of his throws, and he ranks 32nd of 37 quarterbacks in total EPA. This interception against Buffalo was one of the worst throws a quarterback has made this season, an egregious miss you shouldn’t see such a highly regarded passer making. He wasn’t facing any pressure, his footwork was clean, and the open throw was available—he just badly missed his target.
When watching Lawrence’s spotty accuracy and inconsistent decision-making, you have to wonder about the role of Pederson and his longtime assistant, offensive coordinator Press Taylor, in all this. Dating back to last season, Pederson has engaged in this odd, secretive game about who is actually calling the plays. Is it Taylor? Is it Pederson? Do they share? Maybe Pederson doesn’t want to damage his friend’s reputation by admitting that Taylor’s the one calling a failing offense, or he doesn’t want to embarrass Taylor by taking play-calling duties away. But ultimately, Pederson will rightly bear the brunt of the responsibility for this offense, which has gone backward every year of his tenure. The Jaguars were in the top 10 in passing EPA in 2022, 17th in 2023, and 27th this year.
Pederson’s offense fell off a cliff in Philadelphia, too. His Eagles ranked seventh in overall offensive EPA in 2017, when they won a Super Bowl, and progressively declined from there, to 14th in 2018, 15th in 2019, and 29th in 2020. Roster attrition played a part in Philadelphia’s tumble. Quarterback Carson Wentz was an MVP candidate before a knee injury derailed his 2017 season, and his play regressed in subsequent years under Pederson. Lawrence is too talented to suffer Wentz’s fate, and while time proved that Wentz just wasn’t as good as his hot 2017 suggested, there’s no excuse if Pederson and Lawrence can’t make this an effective marriage.
Pederson wasn’t just brought on to power wash Meyer’s mess out of the building; there was an expectation that he’d install a modern version of the West Coast offense—one that would maximize Lawrence and push him into the conversation as a perennial MVP candidate and a true franchise-altering quarterback. Instead, while division rival C.J. Stroud is putting on a clinic in how to avoid negative plays and be smart with the ball, Pederson’s more physically gifted passer is throwing into double coverage. Lawrence isn’t helping himself, but Pederson and Taylor are clearly failing to help their quarterback develop, refine his skill set, and adapt their scheme after defenses figured out the offense’s most predictable tendencies.
Where Do the Jaguars Go From Here?
It’s hard to imagine at this point that Pederson will keep his job beyond this season, and if this spiral continues, it wouldn’t be surprising if Jacksonville owner Shad Khan makes yet another in-season coaching move. So what would that mean for Lawrence, who signed a five-year contract extension this offseason?
If we take draft pedigree and name recognition out of consideration here, what you have is an athletically gifted quarterback who has the arm talent to make any throw but is showing serious inconsistencies when it comes to accuracy and pocket management. I’m not describing a generational talent who can succeed in any scheme or automatically elevates the players around him.
This is the type of quarterback who tends to thrive in a system where the offensive coordinator and play caller make things easy on him.
Kyle Shanahan and Kevin O’Connell have found ways to push the ball downfield with limited quarterbacks. Arthur Smith and Ben Johnson—the offensive coordinators for the Steelers and Lions, respectively—are also heavily reliant on play-action passes and manufacture easy looks for their quarterbacks.
But in terms of play style, I could see Lawrence working in an offense like what Kliff Kingsbury is running for Jayden Daniels in Washington, a scheme built on a pared-down passing game that uses the run game to set up easy looks for the quarterback and opportunities to create with his legs. While I don’t want to see the game taken out of the hands of someone as gifted as Lawrence, I don’t think he’s consistently put enough on tape to inspire confidence that he’ll play well regardless of the offense.
Jacksonville has to sort out what kind of long-term offensive identity it wants to build around him. The franchise has committed to Lawrence through the 2030 season; the earliest they could realistically move on would be after the 2026 season, but they’d have to take on $44 million in dead money if they cut him at that point. Bill Belichick is the biggest free agent coaching name available, but he would bring his acolytes (hello, Josh McDaniels) and an offensive system that hasn’t worked at peak capacity without Tom Brady at the helm.
No coaching hire will be successful in Jacksonville unless Lawrence takes some big steps forward, and I’m not convinced that that’s coming in 2024. It would be one thing if we had a consistent track record showing that Lawrence struggles in specific situations—or against the same kinds of defensive looks. Good coaches can mitigate that by adjusting the scheme. The issue with Lawrence is that there’s no through line for the kinds of mistakes he’s making this season or any reasoning behind them. He’s just as likely to uncork the best throw of the week against the blitz as he is to sail a pass 4 feet over his receiver’s head. Lawrence will move quickly through his progression in one instance and lock onto one receiver the next.
I started this film analysis by asking what happened to the Lawrence we saw before, but the problem might be that he’s never been anything more than what he is today: a deeply talented, capable quarterback and an equally flawed game manager and decision-maker. In this sense, it is true that Lawrence can be much better than the player we’ve seen this season and that he may never be able to reach true greatness. Still, for the sake of his season and his place in the hierarchy of active quarterbacks, I hope that he quickly moves past these first four games.
