Tag: trevor lawrence urban meyer

Why Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence struggled in his NFL debut

Trevor Lawrence had a rough start to his NFL career with three interceptions against the Texans. Laurie Fitzpatrick breaks down what happened.

There is no easy way to say it, the Jacksonville Jaguars had an ugly Week 1 against the Houston Texans. In a 37-21 loss, Trevor Lawrence ended the day with 332 yards paired with three touchdowns and three interceptions. Lawrence wasn’t terrible but wasn’t that great either. At the end of the day he had some concerning overthrown balls, but the coaching, offensive line play and drops certainly didn’t help.

Early in the game the Jaguars defense let Brandin Cooks get over the top putting the Jaguars down 14-0 entering second quarter. After a few drops into the first drive and an illegal formation flag, Lawrence stood tall and threw his first touchdown of his NFL career.

Lawrence was looking poised in the pocket despite the pressure as he was attempting to end the half on a positive note since the game was still in reach at 17-7 but nothing seemed to go right as the the offensive line gets hit with another illegal formation and an offensive hold on the same play. His right tackle was lined up too far into the backfield putting them at second-and-long, it was at that moment when Lawrence threw his first interception.

Lawrence simply let this one get away from him. As he is rolling outside, trying to make a hard throw look easy, he overthrows his receiver. He seemed to be getting outside the pocket pretty often throughout the game and over throwing the ball was a constant theme. (below)

This throw was to DJ Chark and Lawrence actually has a clean pocket, but the ball just gets out of his hand a little too early, causing it to fly as he attempts to drop it in over the weakside linebacker. These are not easy throws, so its good to see him try, but not great when it ends in a turnover.

After a few good plays, it wasn’t long before his coaches put him in another terrible position with a ‘too many men on the field’ penalty, which landed him on his own 8 yard line. Texans Defensive Coordinator, Lovie Smith was doing a great job disguising coverage, as the defense lined up in press, the corner was actually free to make play on the ball.

Second interception (above) comes when Lawrence telegraphs the pass with his eyes to his receiver and cornerback Vernon Hargreaves, who makes a great play on the ball ending up with the interception. It wasn’t long before Lawrence was just doing anything to get out of the quicksand as Urban Meyer forced Lawrence to throw a whopping 51 attempted passes. He usually praises the run game which seemed non-existent against the Texans.

As the game is clearly out of reach Lawrence throws his third interception in what looks like the rookie is overthinking as he throws it right to the other team. There is really nothing to break-down on this one. (below)

After the game, Lawrence admitted that there is no way to win a game giving up three takeaways. He had opportunities to check the ball down more which would have helped in some situations, but honestly, overall his performance wasn’t that bad as the Lawrence and the passing offense still came away with three touchdowns. These are all fixable mistakes, and we cant take anything away from the Texans defense, Lovie Smith called a great game forcing the rookie quarterback to sit and go through his reads as he was playing from behind the entire game.

Lawrence made some amazing throws against the Texans despite the pressures and drops. You cant deny his pocket awareness and arm strength as he throws this deep dart down field in between defenders for a touchdown. (Below)

Lawrence did not use his feet to gain yards the entire game, in fact he ended with negative two rushing yards. If he stuck to what he knows and just threw short passes as they slowly moved up the field, it would have helped. Throwing on 2nd & Short is better than 2nd & Long after an incompletion, no team will win going 3 for 11 on third downs. The rookie quarterback and Meyer have a long way to go and a lot to fix but this is not out of reach. There were a ton of coaching mistakes that did not help Lawrence in his opening game, and they certainly need to clean it up before seeing the Denver Broncos this upcoming week.

Blessed with better route concepts, Trevor Lawrence has a fiery day vs. Cowboys

The Jaguars’ coaches finally gave Trevor Lawrence a passing game that wasn’t out of 1973, and Lawrence responded accordingly.

Though his first two NFL preseason games, first overall pick Trevor Lawrence, now the Jaguars’ starting quarterback, was not helped by the efforts of offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and passing game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. Too often, Lawrence had to wait for slow-developing deep routes to break open while sitting behind a sub-par offensive line. It was a recipe for disaster, and Lawrence completed 20 of 32 passes for 184 yards and no touchdowns against the Browns and Saints. He was pressured on 14 of his 36 dropbacks, with three sacks.

That’s pretty much all you could expect when stuff like this was going on.

And when you have 30-yard crossers with a quick running back bailout, well… you’d like the rookie to have options over the middle.

Basically, unless Lawrence improvised outside of structure, Bad Things were going to happen. We saw this in Week 1 of the preseason on this deep completion to Marvin Jones was more about Lawrence getting out of the pocket, and Jones making some veteran moves against Browns rookie cornerback Greg Newsome.

Against the Saints in Week 2, one of Lawrence’s few positive plays came on a bootleg left in which he hit Laviska Shenault Jr. for 15 yards…

…but when it came to things in the pocket, more often than not, the combination of bland routes and iffy protection led to less-than-solid results.

Fortunately for Lawrence, his coaches opened things up in the preseason finale against the Cowboys on Sunday, and Lawrence responded as one would hope. He completed 11 of 12 passes for 139 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, no sacks, and a quarterback rating of 154.5 — nearly twice the 78.1 passer rating he put up in his first two games. Whether it was Jacksonville’s coaches keeping things vanilla early on, or Jacksonville’s coaches realizing that they’d better give Lawrence more to work with, the results were entirely positive, and a good warmup for Lawrence in preparation for his first regular-season start against the Texans on Sunday, September 12.

How did his coaches make things better for Lawrence? The differences were obvious from the start.

Trevor Lawrence shows development despite Jaguars’ remedial passing offense

The Jaguars have done little to help Trevor Lawrence this preseason. Are there better days ahead, or is this what this offense will be?

After a slow start, the Jacksonville Jaguars have named Trevor Lawrence their starting quarterback. Not a big surprise for the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft. Despite not scoring a touchdown through two preseason games, Lawrence is still the silver lining in the dark cloud of this offense. We have to remember that head coach Urban Meyer likes big plays, his ideal offense is up tempo with high percentage throws but his offensive coaches do not want to show their hand in the preseason. Instead, Meyer is forcing his rookie quarterback to go through his progressions and trust his offense.

The non-existent run game prevents play action from being successful, so this allows the linebackers to sit and play the pass preventing the receivers from getting open off the line of scrimmage. Since the receivers are getting open only when they are further downfield, at their breaks, this puts pressure on the offensive line to hold their blocks for a longer amount of time and since the line have been beat up with injuries, Lawrence’s progression from Week 1 to Week 2 hasn’t been transparent, yet its still exists. 

Lawrence took two sacks against the Browns that were purely on him. He would rather throw it deep than check the ball down, which honestly is a breath of fresh air than what we are used to seeing from the Jaguars offense. Although Lawrence took a sack, he remained undaunted, on the very next play he continued to stand in the pocket extending the play while Marvin Jones got open.

From the broadcast it looked like the play took a lot of time to develop. Instead, it seemed like a receiver didn’t read the defense correctly, therefore two receivers ran the same route. The takeaway is that Lawrence noticed he had time, and then took a shot downfield and succeeded. 

Now just to make it clear, I wont say the play-calls have been perfect either, except we don’t know if its the receivers not making the adjustments or if the play call was actually bad. 

With a long developing play like this deep hitch (above), the receivers should be making their breaks at the sticks. Despite that, Lawrence is still making good choices as he slides within the pocket, keeping his eyes down field while feeling the pressure, then taking a hit by two Saints defenders while attempting to throw his receiver open (below). This was just a great pass breakup by safety Malcolm Jenkins.

The long developing play calls have been less than ideal, but it’s all about timing and rapport. Lawrence will have the time when his starting offensive line is playing, and he said himself, “we all just have to get on the same page…”

What is great about this play (above) is that Lawrence learned from game one and decided to get it out quicker but during the season when the rapport continues to build, Laviska Shenault Jr. gets this ball for a big play.

All in all, Lawrence has shown that he has the potential to be a very good quarterback in this league through his poise, athleticism and determination to win. I mean, come on, we can’t deny this….

Remember, it’s only preseason! Jacksonville’s offense is flawed right now, but let’s wait and see if offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and passing game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer give Lawrence more schemed openings and favorable concepts when the Jaguars take on the Texans in Week 1 of the regular season.

Trevor Lawrence could be in trouble in Jaguars’ limited passing game

If the Jacksonville Jaguars don’t expand their passing concepts, first overall pick Trevor Lawrence might be in trouble.

You’re never going to see everything a team wants to run in the first game of the preseason, and if the team’s coaching staff is new, you’re really not going to have a sense of what the plan is for a while, based on the tape. With that caveat in mind, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offense in their 23-13 loss to the Browns should be a matter of some concern. First-overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence finished his day with six completions in nine attempts for 71 yards, two sacks, and one big play — a 35-yard completion to receiver Marvin Jones Jr.

Take that 35-yard play out, and Lawrence had a 4.5 yards per attempt average, and when you review what was designed by offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and passing game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer, it was a combination of swings and screens, the “All-stop” stuff that Amari Cooper told Dak Prescott to stop running a few years back, and long-developing isolation routes straight from Mike McCarthy’s Packers playbook. If Bevell and Schottenheimer were not going to give Lawrence designed openings in the intermediate and deep passing game, there were going to be problems.

And there were problems. Lawrence was sacked by former Jaguars defensive tackle Sheldon Day on his first NFL dropback, and he was sacked again with 1:14 left in the first quarter — this time by linebacker Porter Gustin. The 35-yard completion happened on the next play.

How the Jaguars can best set Trevor Lawrence up for NFL success

Now that the Jaguars have Trevor Lawrence, how can they best set him up for NFL success?

One of the most interesting questions entering the NFL season for the Jacksonville Jaguars is how exactly Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer and offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell will utilize the talents of first overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence.

If we want to know how Lawrence will be used in the NFL, we have to first understand the offensive minds behind the scenes. Urban Meyer, most recently with Ohio State, ran a spread offence with a run-first variation (power and inside zone). Meyer usually ran a shotgun set with a sprinkle of the option. He does a really good job of successfully switching the offensive philosophies based on the quarterback who is on the field. With Chris Leak, they ran a drop-back passing attack, and with Tim Tebow & Alex Smith, option run-based spread. When Meyer had Braxton Miller and Carlos Hyde, they often ran play-action with zone-read run style. 

During his career, Meyer made it known that he loves the spread; and with the Jaguars he will most likely have primarily one-back in the backfield and a shotgun-to-run spread. We can expect a lot of motions, wheels from the backfield, hook & flat concepts from 21 personnel (Etienne from the slot), Smash/Crosser (Hi-Lo) passing concepts, and expect to see vertical stretch passing all attacking Cover 2 and stretching those safeties, and lastly, shovel passes from zone reads. 

Lawrence is pretty comfortable with running from shotgun formation and with his athleticism this makes him a deadly dual-threat quarterback who will utilize the read option similar to how Brian Schottenheimer used Russell Wilson.

We should see a heavy run-game early with Robinson and Etienne. Once the run game is established, play-action will freeze the secondary leaving DJ Chark, Laviska Shenault and Marvin Jones one-on-one. 

Since Urban’s offense lives and dies by the run. Let’s check out some play-action fakes from Lawrence that you might see in the upcoming season: 

Last year against Virginia, Lawrence fakes the toss, pulling the linebackers in and he spots an opening in zone coverage. We see him carry out fakes a little too far sometimes, which can lead to unnecessarily hits that he will have to fix; nonetheless it’s better to fix and over-sell than under-sell.

Against Florida State, Clemson runs a power-read packaged with a Jet Sweep which isolates the defense. The backfield option will hold the safety leaving his receiver one-on-one on the outside.

These are the types of plays we see in the NFL today.