Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence took some major strides during the 2022 season. He looked more like the franchise quarterback that the team hoped they were getting when they used the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft on him.
While year-to-year improvement as a young player is expected, the biggest change wasn’t something that was within Trevor Lawrence’s control. Instead, it was the coaching change that the Jaguars made.
Going from Urban Meyer to Doug Pederson was a massive upgrade for Trevor Lawrence and the rest of the team. Pederson has Super Bowl-winning experience while Meyer had never coached in the NFL, earning his stripes collegiately.
Having two different head coaches during his first two seasons in the NFL certainly isn’t ideal, but in this case, it was a positive thing. Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars are now on a much better trajectory and Pederson is a big reason for that.
Heading into Year 3, expectations are on the rise once again. Jacksonville won the AFC South last season and had a miraculous comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers on Super Wild Card Weekend before losing to the Kansas City Chiefs the next week.
For Trevor Lawrence, he is ready to take that next step because of the continuity that has been built. For the first time in his professional career, he isn’t learning a new offense in the offseason. That has been a major key to his work this offseason, focusing solely on improving himself.
“To have the same staff, to have a lot of the same players, to have that carryover, and the system, that feels good having that and being able to focus on little parts of my game instead of just making sure I got the installs and know the plan coming into practice,” Lawrence said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “Not having that stress of just learning the playbook, I can just really focus on my game and my mechanics. . . . Now we have our culture set, we have our staff, we have our system. It feels good having that in place.”
If the second half of the 2022 season is a sign of things to come for Trevor Lawrence, the Jaguars are going to make some noise this season. He earned his first Pro Bowl nomination and finished seventh in the MVP voting.
After going 2-6 through October, the Jaguars turned things on in the second half of the season, with Trevor Lawrence being a driving force. With a strong coaching staff and a supporting cast of players around him, Trevor Lawrence looks ready to ascend to that next level with his first straight-forward offseason as a pro.
