JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – For Jaguars fans looking and hoping that another fresh start will be just what Trevor Lawrence needs, Friday night was a great first step.
The Jaguars held their only stadium scrimmage of training camp on Friday night under the lights at EverBank Stadium and it was Lawrence who showcased just what head coach Liam Coen hoped to see.
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In putting a stamp on their second week of training camp, Coen gave Lawrence a ringing endorsement. Players who the Jaguars needed to see something big from did their part. Lawrence was one of the biggest.
“I thought he played awesome,” Coen said.
That’s a promising thing to hear, especially after the turbulence of how Lawrence’s ascent seemed to crater under Doug Pederson the last year and a half.
Lawrence looked sharp and decisive in throwing against second team players much of the night. It was the first look at Lawrence in EverBank Stadium since he suffered a concussion in a Week 13 game last year against Houston. Jacksonville put Lawrence on injured reserve after that to deal with a shoulder injury that he ultimately had surgery on.
Coen was hired to help rebuild the franchise and try and elevate Lawrence to the level many expected when he was drafted No. 1 overall in 2021. No one’s ready to suggest Coen’s work with Lawrence has delivered a finished product, but the process has certainly been positive.
Friday’s scrimmage was Jacksonville’s eighth of camp. In charting Lawrence during team periods in camp, he’s only had one moderately rough day (he was picked off by Chad Muma on a tipped pass on Day 3, July 25). All four quarterbacks and most of the receivers labored against the defense that day.
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Up until Lawrence’s second camp interception on Friday night by Zechariah McPhearson, he’d been making good decisions and throws. The pick by McPhearson was a combination of receiver Parker Washington mixing up a route and Lawrence throwing the ball to the anticipated window instead of just throwing it away. News4JAX had Lawrence completing 20 of 28 passes, including a pair of touchdowns to Brian Thomas Jr. and the final throw of the game going for a score to Brenton Strange.
“I thought he was making sharp, fast decisions. The ball was getting driven constantly. I thought it was getting driven. He missed a few for sure. He missed Travis [WR/DB Travis Hunter] down on the goal line behind, when Ventrell [LB Ventrell Miller] made a great play, but that ball’s got to be out in front,” Coen said.
“The interception’s a tough one. Parker took a little long on the route. We had an out in a corner combination down here. The guy that had the out covered fell off. He lobbed it in the back of the end zone. Just move on, progress, or throw it in the back of the end zone but I just thought he made good sharp decisions. He drove the ball. I thought he ran the show well. I thought it was a good night for him.”
The ground game behind Tank Bigsby, Travis Etienne and rookies Bhayshul Tuten, LeQuint Allen Jr. and Ja’Quinden Jackson had been the more notable offensive players the last week or so of camp. Bigsby, especially, has run strong in his third season and has looked like the No. 1 back. Allen has been promising as a runner and a pass catcher. Etienne has been getting No. 1 reps alongside Bigsby. And until a hamstring injury slowed Tuten this week, he’d looked excellent.
The stadium scrimmage shifted gears from the ground production to the crispness of the aerial attack.
“Tonight, just to see the pass game open up a little bit more and guys get out in space and protect fairly well,” Coen said. “So, that was definitely something that I was pleased with seeing because it really, not to say that it hasn’t showed up, it’s just hard sometimes in those controlled settings to always, when scripted, be able to get those off.”
