JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Trevor Lawrence is notoriously one of the best deep ball throwers in the NFL. If you had to ask what the young quarterback is best at, it would probably be just that: his ability to create plays downfield.
Though his deep ball is among the best in the NFL, much of the game is won in the short and intermediate areas of the field, opening up opportunities for those big shots later on. The NFL, as a whole, is trending towards a shorter passing attack.
Unfortunately for the Jaguars, this is an area Trevor Lawrence and the team struggled with last season. Despite leading the league in 2023 with a 76.6% completion rate under 10 yards downfield, Lawrence posted a 69.3% this past season, 31st in the NFL according to NextGenStats.
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Trevor Lawrence’s NFL Rating of 86.0 wasn’t all that much better, ranking 26th in the NFL. It was planned that the Jaguars would stretch the field this past season, letting Lawrence utilize his arm more often; however, it can’t come at the cost of his short-game efficiency.
Much of these struggles could be attributed to the team’s lack of a screen game and their abandonment of slants and crossers. The Jaguars ranked 17th in screens, far less than Coen’s third-ranked Tampa Bay Bucs.
Similarly, the Jaguars ranked 27th in slants, despite Brian Thomas Jr being the NFL’s best separator on the route according to Fantasy Points. They ran crossers even less, dead last in the NFL last season.
This is quite puzzling, as crossers had been a staple of Pederson’s offense. In 2022, the Jaguars ranked 10th in their use of the route; however, they ranked just 31st and 32nd in the last two seasons, respectively.
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The Jaguars were 31st in their use of crossers, slants and dig routes. Hilariously, the team ranked first in completion rate on those routes (80.3%). Even so, Trevor Lawrence was still just 31st in completion percentage under 10 yards downfield.
With Liam Coen at the helm and Brian Thomas Jr, Dyami Brown, and Travis Hunter out wide, I expect a very different offense for the Jaguars come the start of the 2025 season. No offensive coordinator was better at getting the most out of screens than Liam Coen last season.
If the Jaguars can find the happy medium between letting Lawrence sling it and fixing his short game, it’s a red alert for the rest of the AFC South. We might just see the best version of Lawrence very soon.
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