JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – All eyes are on No. 16.
There’s no way to downplay how big of a season it is for Trevor Lawrence. He’s entering the sixth NFL year and starting his second under Liam Coen and offensive coordinator Grant Udinski.
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Coen’s challenge when he was hired centered around unlocking Lawrence’s massive potential. Billed as a generational quarterback prospect and the best since Andrew Luck, Lawrence had been more frustrating than anything during his career.
He’d shown franchise-leading poise during the second half run to the NFL playoffs in 2022 but struggled far too often with consistency. Under Coen and Udinski last year, Lawrence took a significant step forward. He hit the 4,000-yard passing mark for the third time in his career, tossed 29 touchdowns and rushed for nine more.
In Year 2 of the Coen-Udinski scheme, Lawrence is naturally expected to make even greater strides. He looked more and more comfortable in the system as 2025 went on. And with another offseason working with Coen, Lawrence could realistically challenge for the MVP award. He finished fifth in voting last year for it.
Minicamp coverage
“So, I think while trying to challenge himself and our receivers more with down the field passing, challenging him try new things of concepts and fit some throws into maybe windows you would otherwise take a check down in,” Coen said. “While balancing that, I thought he did a really nice job taking care of the football, running the whole operation, managing the protections and some of the concepts on the field. Yeah, I’m pleased with Trevor’s spring. Absolutely.”
Receiver Jakobi Meyers, acquired in a deadline deal with the Raiders last fall, said that Lawrence’s familiarity with the offense this spring has shown. Meyers said that when he makes a mistake, Lawrence knows the system so well that he can just explain the nuance of it and move on instead of stopping practice to address it.
“The way he throws the ball, he could tell you exactly what we’re thinking and we could tell him exactly what he’s thinking, so the communication, the help, the leadership, he’s been doing a good job this year,” Meyers said.
Notebook
- The team ended Thursday’s camp with having two rookies try and field punts — offensive guard Emmanuel Pregnon and defensive tackle Albert Regis. Pregnon couldn’t haul in the shallow punt from Logan Cooke, but Regis was able to make the grab on his punt. His catch drew the day’s biggest reaction as defensive players jumped up to celebrate him hanging on to it.
- No Nate Boerkircher practicing Thursday.
- Little bit of a rough day for some of the rookies that have impressed. Tanner Koziol and CJ Williams both have flashed, but on the final day of minicamp, both had issues getting lined up. It happens with rookies; there will be ups and downs. Even with the mistakes both Williams and Koziol made plays later in practice. Koziol had a nice toe-tap touchdown grab in team drills on a back-of-the-end-zone catch from Nick Mullens. Williams has a tougher road to earning real snaps, but for Koziol, there is a real chance he plays meaningful football for the Jags this season.
- Quieter day for the offense as they really speared the ball around Chandler Brayboy, maybe the offensive standout with a TD and nice sideline catch. Michael Wortham also had a nice catch to end practice.
- The Jaguars defense is moving some pieces around, and this is the time of the year to do it. The Jags are going to get after the QB, and it looks like there will be some interesting collections of players fielded to do it. From as simple as a D line that has both Ruke Orhorhoro and Arik Armstead to as interesting as a defense that has Dennis Gardeck and Jaylen McLeod on the field at the same time. Some of this may never see the game field, but it is at least being experimented with.
- The biggest winner of minicamp was Jabbar Muhammad. With Travis Hunter and Jourdan Lewis sidelined, there are reps available, and Muhammad has taken advantage of them. It is easy to see how he has moved up the DB pecking order.
- Caleb Ransaw and Branson Combs are both guys that I think are in the hunt for playing time.