The Jaguars entered 2023 as -175 favorites to win the AFC South and were even viewed as a trendy darkhorse AFC contender. And why not? They ended 2022 with a miraculous 27-point comeback victory over the Chargers in the Wild Card round and didn’t look overly out of place in Arrowhead during their 27-20 loss to the eventual Super Bowl champions.
Rising third-year QB Trevor Lawrence flashed the sort of “generational” talent many expected out of the gate after he was selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. It was easy to believe he would make a leap in his second season under longtime QB whisperer Doug Pederson — especially considering the team added former stud Falcons WR Calvin Ridley to an offense that already featured talented skill-position weapons like Travis Etienne, Christian Kirk, Evan Engram and even Zay Jones.
And then 2023 went ahead and actually happened.
Jaguars 2023 Recap
The team’s 8-3 start quickly built up warranted hope, but then T-Law and company lost five of their last six games against the likes of Jake Browning, Joe Flacco, Lamar Jackson (OK, fine), Baker Mayfield and Ryan Tannehill.
The latter collapse lost Duval a chance to host a playoff game and win their second consecutive divisional title. Let’s just say Lawrence didn’t exactly rise to the occasion late, unsuccessfully calling his own number on a failed fourth-down conversion from the goal line before missing Ridley deep on what could have set up a game-tying two-point conversion attempt.
Jobs were quickly lost: Defensive Mike Caldwell and his staff were fired, as was RB coach Bernie Parmalee.
Head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Press Taylor are tentatively expected to continue leading the offense, but both are firmly on the hot seat after the league’s seventh-most expensive offense led by a former No. 1 overall pick averaged just 22.2 points per game (13th).
Is Trevor Lawrence to blame?
This leads to the key question that many will be attempting to wrap their minds around for the entirety of this offseason: How much of the Jaguars’ 2023 collapse was really on Trevor Lawrence?
Jan 7, 2024; Nashville, Tennessee, USA; Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence (16) stands in the pocket against the Tennessee Titans during the first half at Nissan Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Roberts-USA TODAY Sports
First of all, injuries didn’t help. T-Law is probably in an ice bath somewhere as you’re reading this:
- Week 6: Bruised knee
- Week 13: Grade 3 high ankle sprain
- Week 15: Concussion
- Week 16: Sprained A/C joint
The longtime ironman would miss one game (his first since high school), although the ailments didn’t seem to overly impact his underlying efficiency numbers. Those metrics remained … pretty mid.
Among 32 qualified QBs:
- Overall: +0.071 EPA per dropback (17th), +0.9 CPOE (17th)
- Pre-Week 9 Bye: +0.064 (14th), +1 (17th)
- Post-Week 9 Bye: +0.079 (15th), +0.8 (12th)
This is really the story of Lawrence’s career at this point: Even removing his disastrous Urban Meyer-induced rookie campaign from the equation doesn’t exactly put him in the same tier as the league’s very best QBs.
Of course, being around guys like Justin Herbert, Jared Goff and Joe Burrow isn’t a bad thing, but when everyone has been forced to hear the phrase “Best QB prospect since Andrew Luck” for a good five years — the results are admittedly relatively underwhelming.
A look at Lawrence’s numbers when compared against 79 other qualified QBs with at least 300 dropbacks during the first three seasons of their career since 2000 doesn't do him many additional favors.
- PFF pass grade: 72.7 (28th)
- Passer rating: 85.0 (34th)
- Yards per attempt: 6.7 (tied for 43rd)
- Adjusted completion rate: 74.9% (10th)
Yes, Lawrence hasn’t exactly been what the cool kids might call elite when it comes to down-to-down efficiency.
Also yes, the rest of the team wasn’t exactly pulling their weight in 2023. Specifically:
- The often banged-up offensive line was ranked as PFF’s sixth-worst unit entering Week 18.
- The defense absolutely fell apart late, surrendering 34, 31, 23, 30, 0 (to the Panthers) and 28 points during the team's aforementioned poor end-of-season stretch.
- None of the team’s starting WRs in Kirk (60th), Ridley (69th) or Jones (88th) managed to crack ESPN’s top-50 receivers in their overall advanced receiver ratings. They are the only team without at least one WR ranked inside ESPN’s top 60 WRs.
- There was some early-season confusion as to whether or not Pederson truly had handed over play-calling duties to Taylor. Regardless of who was truly in charge, the offense’s below-average ranks in play-action rate (22nd) and pre-snap shift/motion (19th) weren’t in line with what the league’s top-scoring offenses were typically doing.
Every QB deals with letdowns from his teammates and coaches to some extent — but Lawrence has a pretty solid case as 2023’s most snake-bitten signal-caller when it comes to who had the most near-miss TDs.
Lawrence (3) also joins Patrick Mahomes (2) as the only players with multiple drops that directly led to interceptions (PFF). Look no further than literally Week 18 to find an instance of TE Evan Engram letting a perfectly thrown pass bounce right off his hands and to the defense.
So where does this leave us? How much of the blame does T-Law deserve?
I’m going to take the annoying route here and go with “some” as opposed to “all” or “none.”
Even Lawrence’s biggest truthers have to admit he hasn’t played up to the ridiculous expectations of his pre-draft billing, but at the same time, this banged-up WR room in particular largely underperformed all season-long under a head coach who has only led one top-10 scoring offense since 2017.
Where do the Jaguars go from here?
The team will be forced to ask some tough questions sooner rather than later this offseason when it comes time to decide whether or not key contributors like Ridley, LG Ezra Cleveland and C Tyler Shatley will be worth re-signing. This front office isn’t exactly overflowing with resources at the moment.
Those holding out hope for a year four turnaround should hope for the following three factors to unfold over the next few months:
1. Add depth to the WR room. It’d help if Kirk and Jones don’t combine to miss 14 games again, but either way the team can’t be confident in Ridley (30 next December) fully regaining alpha No. 1 WR form. The team’s relative lack of cap space makes a splurge on someone like Mike Evans unlikely, but using one of their three top-100 picks on the position or signing some lower-cost complementary options would make some sense.
2. Find more consistent YAC options. This was a bottom-eight offense in yards after the catch per completion in 2023. The Jaguars RBs (2nd) and TEs (14th) weren’t the issue: No WR room averaged fewer yards after the catch per reception than the Jaguars (3.2) this season. Potentially reasonably priced free agent options like Curtis Samuel, Nelson Agholor or even Parris Campbell could help add a different dimension to an offense that struggled to overly threaten defenses vertically or horizontally — especially when Kirk was sidelined down the stretch.
3. Fortify the offensive line. It’d make sense if young, recent Day 1 or Day 2 picks like OT Anton Harrison, OT Walker Little and G Luke Fortner improve, but then again G Brandon Scherff (33 next December) and OT Cam Robinson (29 in October) were the unit’s only two players ranked inside of PFF’s top-100 offensive linemen last season. The latter veteran could be a cap casualty considering Jacksonville would save $16.5 million against the cap with a post-June 1 release.
Here’s to hoping Lawrence and company get things figured out in 2024 and beyond. After all, the NFL and fantasy football alike are simply more fun when there are more than a few truly elite QBs out there.
