Preseason questions for Jaguars: Urban, Trevor and the pass rush

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence looks for a receiver during an NFL football team practice, Tuesday, June 8, 2021, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux) (John Raoux, Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Today, we’re starting our weeklong series looking at the biggest questions facing the Jaguars heading into the 2021 preseason. The team reports to training camp in less than a month. It will be the first training camp under Urban Meyer. In fact, it will be the first NFL training camp that Meyer has ever been a part of. And that’s question number one.

What kind of a learning curve will Meyer have?

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He’s already had a number of speed bumps. The misstep with the hiring of Chris Doyle as the sports performance coach. Then the slow start in free agency and some of his adjustments with regards to how to handle the draft. To be fair, Meyer has been very open about many of these challenges. He’ll be better about those offseason tasks next year. But until you go through it, you just don’t know what you don’t know.

There will certainly be misses during training camp and the preseason and on into the regular season, but will those challenges impact the Jaguars record? Probably.

The big question is, how much? Meyer has a great track record as a coach in the college game and I think he’ll eventually be a very good NFL coach. But it’s unrealistic to think that he won’t have to learn in 2021.

Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer, left, watches players perform drills during an NFL football practice, Monday, June 14, 2021, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux) (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

The Trevor factor

Expectations for Trevor Lawrence are sky high.

Not just No. 1 pick level expectations. Savior of the Franchise expectations.

Is it too much? Probably. Some local predictions on talk radio are talking about Lawrence as being a Pro Bowl quarterback as a rookie. That hasn’t happened since Dan Marino. In fact, Marino is the only rookie quarterback to make the Pro Bowl in NFL history. So, let’s tap the brakes just a bit.

That being said, a season like last year’s rookie of the year, Chargers’ quarterback Justin Herbert isn’t out of the question. Herbert completed two-thirds of his passes for 4,336 yards, with 31 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. If Lawrence equals those numbers, he would be third in yards and second in touchdowns in Jaguars’ history for a single season.

But I’m less concerned about the stats in his rookie season. What’s most important for the Jaguars is to see that he is progressing. Is his understanding of situations improving? Is he showing progress on third down, in the red zone and in the fourth quarter of games?

Those are some key metrics to look for. Eventually, he should reduce the turnovers, but if he throws some interceptions early on, no big worry. It’s about progress.

With rookie quarterbacks, it’s usually easy to see the things they can do. Then you want to see them do those things consistently. That’s Lawrence’s biggest task as a rookie.

How about the pass rush?

In the Jaguars miserable 2020 season, the defense totaled 18 sacks. That’s barely more than one per game. Only the Bengals had fewer. Nobody on the team has as many as six sacks. In a season without Calais Campbell and Yannick Ngakoue, Sacksonville was Sack-lessville. Josh Allen struggled through injuries and totaled only 2.5 sacks a season after he set a Jaguars’ rookie record with 10.5.

Josh Allen of the Jacksonville Jaguars lines up during the game against the Miami Dolphins at TIAA Bank Field on September 24, 2020 in Jacksonville, Florida. (Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images) (2020 Getty Images)

That’s where the improvement must start. Allen is too talented to be a non-factor in the pass rush. He must find a way to get to the quarterback despite being the player opposing teams key on. This year, he needs to prove that his sophomore slump was just a fluke.

The Jaguars will also be looking for K’Lavon Chaisson — a first round pick last season, to make a bigger impact. Chaisson struggled as he moved from an outside linebacker position at LSU to defensive end with the Jaguars. Then there is Dawaune Smoot, who led the team in sacks last year. Can he keep it going? The Jaguars’ new defensive coordinator Joe Cullen will want to see the team’s sack totals double, at least, in 2021.