There was a lot of excitement within the Jacksonville Jaguars’ fanbase when they drafted Trevor Lawrence first overall, but due to a dysfunctional situation around him, a lot of the excitement for the team quickly wore off. Luckily, Jags ownership understood that they made a terrible decision and made a coaching change by replacing Urban Meyer with Doug Pederson.
In Pederson, the Jags are getting a coach with NFL experience as a player (a quarterback to be exact), assistant coach, and head coach. They are also getting an offensive-minded coach who should mesh well with Lawrence and knows how to help young quarterbacks learn the game.
In addition to getting Lawrence a better coach and staff, general manager Trent Baalke added help on the player acquisition side, signing notables like Christian Kirk and Brandon Scherff on the offensive side. And with Travis Etienne now ready to take the field after rehabbing his foot injury from last preseason, Lawrence will also be getting a familiar target back from his days at Clemson to help him.
These are just some of the reasons many have listed Lawrence as a 2022 bounce-back candidate after a rough rookie season where he completed under 60% of his passes for 3,641 yards, 12 touchdowns, and 17 picks. We can now include CBS Sports among the group that is high on Lawrence rebounding as they listed him among their top-10 bounce-back candidates.
Here is what analyst Cody Benjamin had to say about the second-year quarterback heading into this regular-season:
Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence
The former No. 1 overall pick is still bound for growing pains, but everything around him is better in 2022. The line is improved with Brandon Scherff now on the interior, the skill groups are at least deeper, and best of all, his head coach is now an ally. It’ll be hard for Lawrence not to take a step forward under Doug Pederson after a listless rookie year.
Pederson may be the best acquisition on the team this offseason despite not being a player. The reason for that is because his background with quarterbacks includes coaching notables like Alex Smith, Michael Vick, and Carson Wentz, who performed at an MVP level in 2017.
Lawrence was regarded as the best prospect to enter the draft since Andrew Luck, which undoubtedly lured Pederson into Jacksonville. The two already appear to have a great relationship and will look to make it stronger in training camp, and if they do, Lawrence would be set to have a much better season than he did as a rookie.
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