The Jacksonville Jaguars selected Trevor Lawrence with the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft. Their hope was to pair him with incoming head coach, Urban Meyer, and form one of the most promising young teams in the league.
Unfortunately, things didn’t quite go according to plan.
Meyer was an unmitigated disaster from the jump. Players hated him. Ownership despised him. And that is to say nothing of his now-infamous “lap dance video” scandal, nor the accusations of inappropriate text messages and a worse unreleased video that came out afterwards.
Lawrence didn’t have a debut as rough as Meyer’s, but clearly having a bad head coach impacted him to some degree. He wasn’t even the best quarterback of his class, and he wound up recording an NFL-high 17 interceptions along with the lowest average yards per attempt.
This past offseason the Jaguars went out and hired Super Bowl-winning head coach Doug Pederson to oversee their rebuild.
The move already seems to be paying dividends.
A few days ago, Lawrence did an interview where he touched on the change Jacksonville has experienced since Meyer got the boot last year.
“The culture has really flipped,” Lawrence told NFL insider Cameron Wolfe.
That comment really pretty much speaks for itself.
With Meyer now a college football coaching candidate for two schools, it appears all parties are moving forward.
Lawrence could really use a big 2022-23 NFL campaign. To date, he has made more headlines for his and girlfriend’s choice of Halloween costumes than substantive on the field accomplishments.
That’s one way to prepare for the Panthers’ opener. https://t.co/EUFgl29Wtf
— Game 7 (@game7__) September 8, 2022
Many envision that changing this season, though. A lot of folks see him experiencing a Joe Burrow-esque improvement this year.
Will Lawrence ultimately be able to live up to these newfound expectations and prove that Meyer was in fact the problem in 2021?
Time will tell.
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A graduate from the University of Texas, Anthony Amador has been credentialed to cover the Houston Texans, Dallas Cowboys, San Antonio Spurs, Dallas Mavericks and high school games all over the Lone Star State. Currently, his primary beats are the NBA, MLB, NFL and UFC.
