In Week 1, the Jacksonville Jaguars looked feisty. In Week 2, they looked like a team capable of winning the games they’re supposed to.
But in Week 3, Trevor Lawrence’s team looked like an honest-to-god playoff team in a packed AFC. That’s what happen when you go on the road to face a popular Super Bowl pick and trounce them 38-10.
Lawrence, coming off the best game of his budding career in last week’s 24-0 victory over the Indianapolis Colts, toppled a Los Angeles Chargers defense that had held Patrick Mahomes to 235 yards a week before. The 2021 top overall draft pick threw for 262 yards and three touchdowns without a turnover in a statement win. Just as importantly, the Jacksonville defense held Justin Herbert to one touchdown drive and limited the Charger run game to only 26 yards on 12 carries.
This all acts as evidence to back up one important theory; Urban Meyer is, indeed, a truly horrible NFL coach.
The Jaguars have thrived since being freed from Meyer’s roster building and management. They already have as many wins in three weeks of the 2022 season than they did in 13 games under his stewardship last fall. Meyer’s two NFL wins came by a combined six points. Doug Pederson’s Jags have won their last two games by an aggregate of 52.
ZAY WAY@zayjones11 | @Trevorlawrencee #JAXvsLAC on CBS pic.twitter.com/ubVlP4tBbQ
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) September 25, 2022
There are stark depth chart differences between this team and the one Meyer drove off a cliff last season. The receiving corps has useful veteran depth led by the handsomely compensated — and extremely effective! — Christian Kirk. New arrivals Travon Walker, Devin Lloyd and Darious Williams had six passes defensed between them against a Pro Bowl quarterback in Herbert. There are several new players who’ve been vital to this team’s impressive start.
But there are plenty of holdovers who have soaked up the sunlight without a Meyer-shaped eclipse in their way. Lawrence, per the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, was responsible for -33 expected points added (EPA) last season. This year he’s already at 37.1 in three games. He had zero games with multiple touchdown passes and zero interceptions under Meyer. In seven games without him he’s done it three times.
His pass chart shows he’s capable of carving up defenses in every facet of the aerial attack.
Lawrence is shining, but so is the player Meyer seemed to inexplicably hate the most. James Robinson was coming off a 1,000-yard campaign as an undrafted rookie when Meyer and the Jags brain trust decided to draft tailback Travis Etienne in the first round in 2021. Then, after Etienne suffered a season-ending foot injury in the preseason, Robinson had his playing time pulled seemingly on a whim as Meyer blamed his handling on assistant coaches.
Robinson wasn’t supposed to have an impact in September after an Achilles injury late last season. Instead he’s run for 230 yards in three games — better than 4.5 yards per carry — and has four touchdowns.
This just in: @Robinson_jamess is good at football.#JAXvsLAC on CBS pic.twitter.com/OGbfWq7Vlg
— Jacksonville Jaguars (@Jaguars) September 25, 2022
Living well is the best revenge. Lawrence and Robinson are currently sprawled out in mansions.
It’s not like Pederson is reinventing the wheel for them. His calls are fairly basic, designed to create one-on-one situations in which his playmakers can be trusted to thrive.
Jacksonville converted 10 of its 18 third or fourth down attempts vs. the Chargers, who’d held Mahomes to a four of 12 mark the week before. Sometimes that resulted in Robinson being a monster (see above). Mostly it was simply guiding the offense in place and allowing his quarterback to thrive with the opportunity given (Meyer’s Jaguars, by comparison, ranked 28th in third down conversions last fall).
The Jaguars are playing straightforward football executed well. It’s taken both the Colts and Chargers by surprise in consecutive weeks. Lawrence isn’t pushing a trend like the run-pass option to new heights a la Nick Foles with Pederson’s Super Bowl-winning Eagles; he’s escaping pressure and his wideouts are rolling with him to create the space he needs to be special:
Maybe there’s a shelf life to this. Maybe the unexpected benefit of the Meyer era and the two-plus decades of uncompetitive hell that serves as the franchise’s primordial ooze allows Jacksonville to sneak up on opponents no matter how much film they study. But even if this offense regresses there’s still a defense that rates out next to a terrifying Bills team when it comes to expected points added per play:
The Jaguars are not getting lucky with plucky drives to win tight games. They aren’t taking advantage of a weak schedule and surviving. They’re bludgeoning AFC opponents and putting up numbers against two of the conference’s better defenses (LA ranked 11th in EPA/play allowed after Week 2. It now ranks 24th thanks to Robinson and Lawrence).
Jacksonville is a Lawrence rookie-adjacent final drive interception in Week 1 away from being 3-0. It’s in sole possession of first place in an extremely winnable AFC South.
More importantly, all this looks sustainable for the Jaguars, who are no longer anyone’s easy out on a packed schedule.
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