Since the Jacksonville Jaguars’ preseason opener against the Cleveland Browns on Saturday night, it’s been fairly obvious that Trevor Lawrence is the best option at quarterback for the team. It wasn’t exactly a stellar debut for the first-overall pick, but he was sharper than veteran Gardner Minshew II, whose role on the team is now seriously in question.
However, fans who were hopeful that Lawrence would be named the team’s regular season starter ahead of preseason game No. 2 will be disappointed. Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said that while it’s likely Lawrence will start Monday against New Orleans, the team would be further discussing it as the week closes.
“Not at this moment,” Bevell said when asked if a starter has been decided. “It probably is going to be Trevor [Lawrence], but we are still continuing to talk about it.”
It’s likely that Lawrence will see an expanded role in the second preseason game against New Orleans after getting just two offensive series in the opener. However, the fact that Lawrence started that game should be a good indicator of the state of the competition.
Bevell said that the decision isn’t being based on the results of a preseason game, though.
“I’ve been doing it a long time here, so I have a lot of experiences, as well as the other coaches that we have on the offensive staff,” he said. “I’ll say it doesn’t really matter at this point. What matters is what we’re going to do here, how we’re going to handle it. We’ve talked to [Head] Coach [Urban Meyer] about it and we’ve given our thoughts and his thoughts, and we’ll continue kind of in that direction.”
It seems likely that Lawrence and Minshew will continue to split reps in practice as the preseason continues. Bevell said that will be the case until a decision has been made.
“We are still going to handle it that way until we end up making the final decision, so right now they are still status quo,” he said. “We’re trying to make everybody better and we want competition at each and every position. I think both guys are getting better because of it.”
Though the coaching staff has hinted that Lawrence is winning the competition, they may not name him the starter until the week leading up to the season opener against Houston (if not later). Still, it seems like it’s only a matter of time before it becomes official that he will take the first snap against the Houston Texans.