JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The excuses aren’t valid anymore.
The Jaguars are six games into a rebuild and they just put a 20-game losing streak to rest before the bye week. The rookie quarterback continues to improve at a rapid pace. Is the arrow finally — and slowly — starting to point up for the Jaguars?
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They visit the struggling Seahawks on Sunday afternoon trying to put back-to-back wins together for the first time since Oct. 20 and 27, 2019.
Coach Urban Meyer and his staff have endured an up-and-down start but seem to be getting better each time out. Those excuses in the front half of the season don’t apply now, Meyer said.
It’s time to see the results.
The biggest reason for optimism entering an 11-game march to the end of the regular season is the maturation of Trevor Lawrence.
“So, I feel good about the second run we’re going to go on here. About just the efficiency and now we’ve been in the system for a while,” he said Monday morning. “… The excuse of a new system, the excuse of a young quarterback, that’s all gone, because our young quarterback’s playing pretty good.”
At 1-5, the Jaguars have endured a tough start in the Meyer Era.
Things have been disjointed and turbulent at times. There have been head-scratching play calls and embarrassing sideshows.
Meyer said the bye week allowed the coaching staff to do a “deep dive” on areas of the team that need to improve.
“The self-scout was priceless. Now we got to do something with it,” he said. “There’s some very tangible things that came to light that we need to get fixed.”
The Jaguars went into the bye week on a positive note, which is just what the franchise needed after several close-but-no-victory outcomes. What are the expectations in the second half of the season?
Well, the areas of struggle in slices of the first half (the kicking game, Lawrence’s ups and downs, a shaky defense) need to continue to show improvement.
The kicking position had been a weight all season long, but that was remedied with a career game from Matthew Wright. He hit all three field goals in the game, including a 53-yard walk-off kick to win it, 23-20. Wright connected on a 54-yarder with 3:40 to go to tie it. In wake of Wright’s breakout performance, Jacksonville released Josh Lambo, giving that position, at least for now, feels a bit more security than it had in Weeks 1-5.
Lawrence’s play is the reason for the cautious optimism going forward.
His first three games in the NFL were filled with rookie moments.
Lawrence was 64 for 118 for 669 yards, five touchdowns and seven interceptions. It was very noticeable that Lawrence was trying to do too much.
His final three games (65 for 98, 796 yards, two TDs, INT) have been much better. Lawrence’s numbers have improved and he appears to have a far better grasp of the offense. Lawrence also has a couple rushing scores in that span.
There’s no reason to think that Lawrence’s progression won’t continue, so where can Jacksonville make up further ground? The defense needs to be better, Meyer said.
“I think we went into the storm thinking that we’re going to be playing a very high percentage of man coverage. And we figured out quickly that we’re going to have to mix in a lot of zone. And then that’s where you say, OK, the number of reps you have to get the team ready to play that zone coverage,” Meyer said.
“You can’t say, ‘OK, let’s click on go play zone.’ So, that bye week was good. We spent some time on that, the combination of both. That’s the biggest thing on defense. … I really like where we’re headed in defense, but we need to start seeing it.”
On the injury front, Meyer said that rookie defensive tackle Jay Tufele had surgery for his broken hand and should be back in a few weeks. He confirmed that receiver DJ Chark is out for the year with a broken ankle suffered in the Week 4 game in Cincinnati, and said the lack of an electric playmaker is something that he’s not accustomed to.
Receiver Marvin Jones is very good, but he’s not a player who is torching cornerbacks. Laviska Shenault has shown flashes, but he’s not a burner either. Jacksonville is still waiting to get something from No. 1 waiver wire pickup Tyron Johnson. He’s got just one catch in three games that he’s been active in.
“The thing we don’t have is when DJ went down, do we have that home run hitter on the outside? I think Laviska’s playing well, Marvin’s playing really well,” Meyer said. “We’re just one speed guy short. It might be Agnew. Maybe it’s Tyron, maybe it’s someone else.”