Trevor Lawrence has experienced his share of struggles in his rookie NFL season with a Jacksonville Jaguars team that is currently 2-9.
Through those 11 games, the former Clemson quarterback has completed 58 percent of his passes for 2,369 yards and nine touchdowns with 10 interceptions, posting an adjusted QBR of 33.8, which ranks 28th in the league among signal-callers.
Despite Lawrence’s statistics in year one as a pro, former NFL quarterback and current quarterback consultant Jordan Palmer believes Lawrence is headed in the right direction in terms of his development as an NFL quarterback.
Palmer, who worked with Lawrence during the pre-draft process, joined The Rich Eisen Show to discuss how he views Lawrence’s first 11 starts in the NFL.
“What I look at with Trevor is how often are you making the same decisions – good ones or bad ones – over and over again,” Palmer said. “I think there are certain interceptions that every quarterback has to throw, to know they can’t throw that ball. … There’s just those certain throws, you’ve got to kind of do it. Coach can tell you not to do it, but you’ve got to do it to be able to harness that. I don’t see Trevor making a lot of the same mistakes twice. I see him being aggressive, pushing the ball down the field, trying to execute this offense quickly.
“Roster wise, they’re going to continue to evolve. This is year one, new staff, new everything. But I just don’t see Trevor making a lot of the same mistakes over and over again, which means I see him progressing. And at no point did the game seem too big or too fast or too hard or too complex. So, I think he’s progressing nicely, and I think everyone should be patient.”
Lawrence, who had an 86-4 combined record as a starting quarterback in high school and college, has lost more than twice that many games in his rookie NFL season.
Palmer was asked how he feels Lawrence has handled the losing he isn’t accustomed to and says it hasn’t caused him to lose confidence in himself.
“I just think Trevor’s very self-confident,” Palmer said. “He knows what he knows, believes what he believes about himself, and what he believes right now – and what I believe about him – is this is part of your rookie year. You’ve got to learn. Whether you’re 12-4 or 4-12, you’ve got to learn. So, there’s so much that can happen over the course of this first year, where you can still learn and evolve even though it doesn’t show up in stats or it doesn’t show up in wins or losses. So, from my perspective from across the country watching on TV, I feel like I’ve seen him progress and not make the same mistakes twice, and I don’t have any concerns about his confidence moving forward.”
Palmer believes the future of the Jaguars franchise is in good hands with their No. 1 overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft.
“I don’t know all the things that are going on there, but I would just bet on his maturity, what he’s been through,” Palmer said of Lawrence. “I feel like being the face of college football for a couple of years is bigger than being the face of the Jacksonville Jaguars – the magnitude of it and the eyeballs. Whatever the good stuff that’s going on, whatever the issues they’re having, that’s the kind of guy you want to put in there – not somebody who’s going to kind of stir it up or put stuff out in the public, but somebody who’s going to internally handle it and develop it. So, I don’t know all the stuff that’s going on in Jacksonville. But I’d bet on Trevor, that he can kind of right that ship.”
How do we view the #1 pick’s first 11 games in #DUUUVAL?
QB coach @JwPalms on @TrevorLawrencee year one growing pains:#NFL pic.twitter.com/Rs3Tt7XmA8
— Rich Eisen Show (@RichEisenShow) December 1, 2021
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