Over the second half of his rookie season with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Trevor Lawrence has been going through a touchdown slump unlike anything he experienced during his three years at Clemson.
Lawrence has thrown only one touchdown pass in the Jaguars’ last seven games, a span in which the rookie quarterback has completed 132-of-234 passes (56.4 percent) for 1,242 yards with five interceptions. He’s gone three straight games without a touchdown pass after connecting with Tavon Austin for a 7-yard score against the Atlanta Falcons on Nov. 28.
It’s a stark contrast from Lawrence’s Clemson career (2018-20), during which the former All-American and 2020 Heisman Trophy runner-up tossed at least one touchdown pass in 38 of his 40 career games and never went back-to-back games without a touchdown pass.
Nonetheless, Lawrence remains confident in himself and his abilities despite the dry spell of touchdowns over his last seven NFL games, which he was asked about during a media availability this week.
“I think my confidence is good right now. It’s still intact,” Lawrence said to reporters with a smile. “I’m still going to go out there and play my game. Obviously, I’ve been saying it – we need to be more productive, we need to score more points. And you mentioned only the one touchdown in seven games – I look at that and I hate seeing that just because that means we’re not scoring a lot of points. It’d be different if we were scoring points still, in the run game or whatever it is, and if we’re still able to win games, that’s fine. Like, that’s my job is to try to win games. But when you see that and you’re not scoring points, those kind of go hand in hand.”
Overall this season, entering Jacksonville’s game against the New York Jets on Sunday, Lawrence has completed 58.1 percent of his passes for 2,945 yards and nine touchdowns with 14 interceptions in 14 games.
Offensively, going into Saturday’s Week 16 action, the 2-12 Jaguars ranked second-to-last in the NFL in total offense (302.6 yards per game) and ranked last in the league in points per game (14.0).
“It’s disappointing and it’s something that we definitely are trying to work on, and we’ve got to be more productive,” Lawrence said of the Jaguars’ offense. “It’s all the things – we’ve got to have some more explosive plays, we’ve got to connect more, stay on schedule, stay on the field longer and be better in the red zone. Last week (vs. the Houston Texans), we had a couple opportunities and didn’t finish. So, there’s all things that we can control, to get better at that, and we’ve got to do it and that starts with me.”
–Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images
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