Calvin Ridley Shines in Jaguars Debut
The 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars season is officially kicked off and already the “Duval Devout” are clamoring from what they saw in their opening weekend win over the Colts in Indianapolis.
Regardless of the game’s 31-21 winning outcome, wide receiver Calvin Ridley playing his first regular season game as a Jag had a big impact early on for the offense, with Ridley recording eight catches for 101 yards and a touchdown on the day.
Fantasy football owners that played Ridley were likely celebrating his catching the touchdown for the team’s first points of 2023. That connection from Trevor Lawrence was one of seven catches for 92 yards in the first half alone. (It would have been over 100 with two scores if he didn’t step out of bounds on a play that set up Zay Jones’ Keenan McCardell-esque touchdown reception)
Lawrence rolled out of the pocket to find his newest target in the back of the endzone, but that was already the third time Ridley was there to give Lawrence a valve to escape pressure in the first quarter alone. There were two previous plays where an edge rusher made their way into the backfield (no offense to Anton Harrison and Walker Little, who were starting as a pair of offensive tackles for the first time), but Lawrence was rescued from catastrophe finding Ridley as a safety valve on both occasions to help move the chains.
There was also a catch on a screen where a defender met him in the backfield for what could have been a loss, but the former Atlanta receiver battled his way to turn nothing in something for a short gain.
There’s only so much a wideout can do to help an offensive line that struggled the way that Jacksonville’s did in the season opener. But what was achieved by the former Atlanta Falcons receiver to complete his journey through the adversity of his suspension meant more than keeping the Jags in this particular ball game.
It was worth more than keeping the Colts from stacking the box to enable Travis Etienne and rookie Tank Bigsby (who scored his first NFL touchdown set up by a designed run by Lawrence) to find the endzone.
“I am so happy we got the win. I am a win-first type of player," Ridley said after the game.
"When I go out there, I want to play good, but I want to win games. It feels so good, we work so hard all week and all camp to go out there and we want to win the games. I thought it was fun and obviously we have to get way better, but I thought it was fun and we got the W.”
It is likely that this is a first step for Ridley to reemerge as an explosive option that will help this team do more than they did last year. Fans certainly know that if the Jaguars plan to go 2-0 after their home debut against the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs, Ridley is presumed to be a big part of that effort.
