Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence Didn't Feel 100% Healthy Until March

Lawrence missed a start for the first time in his career due to his string of injuries in 2024.

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence learned a lot in his third season in the NFL.

Namely, he learned how to watch from the sideline for the first time since his Clemson days. Lawrence missed the first game of his three-year NFL career against the Panthers in Week 17 due to a shoulder injury sustained vs. the Buccaneers the week before. For the first time in almost three years, Lawrence found himself anywhere but under center.

It wasn't just the shoulder that impacted Lawrence, either. He also sustained a knee injury in Week 16, an ankle injury in Week 13, and a concussion in Week 15. The injuries piled up, with Lawrence struggling as the Jaguars went 1-5 down the stretch and missed the playoffs.

For Lawrence, it wasn't until last month that the former No. 1 pick truly felt like himself again.

“It took a while, I’d probably say March. When March hit, I felt really good lifting and doing everything totally normal," Lawrence said on Monday.

"I’ve been so used to the back half of the season, adjusting to everything whether it was working out or throwing or practice or whatever it was, I would workout but still modified. Until March, I’d say that’s when I started to feel one hundred percent and do the stuff I normally do. I think I’m kind of getting back into the shape I want to be and train the way I wanted to. It took a little while.”

Lawrence finished the season completing 65.6% of his passes for 4,016 yards, 21 touchdowns and 14 interceptions, along with seven lost fumbles. Lawrence also missed his first career start as he dealt with four different injuries, with Lawrence seemingly having to limp to the finish of the season.

After making it through his first two seasons with minimal injury scares, Lawrence was legitimately walking wounded for much of 2023. Lawrence sustained four different injuries this fall that forced him to miss valuable practice time and play in several games with injuries.

The injuries stacked up during the Jaguars' six-game stretch that saw them go 1-5 and miss the playoffs. The injuries led to Lawrence missing his first career start, which went on to be the Jaguars' only win of the stretch. And among Lawrence's 16 starts, his four starts after each injury saw Lawrence have his 2nd, 5th, 7th, and 8th worst games of the season by total EPA.

“I don’t really regret necessarily the decisions I made, I think the thing to learn about it is maybe the way I play. Maybe there’s sometimes where I can avoid some hits, you’ve just got to stay healthy. The teams that get better every week and that stay healthy are usually the teams that go pretty far into the playoffs and win the Super Bowl," Lawrence said. "Especially at quarterback, you’ve got to stay healthy. That’s something that I’ve learned, also too, if you’re not healthy and you can’t practice, it’s hard to play well. That’s something I want to take more ownership of, making sure whatever it is I have to do, maybe it’s taking less hits, maybe it’s throwing the ball away or doing certain things or whatever I can do to stay healthy is just being able to continue to practice and prepare during the week so I feel like I can put my best performance out there on Sunday and give us a chance to win. I feel like late in the year, I didn’t do that enough.

"I had a handful of games where I didn’t feel like I played well and missed some throws and did some stuff that was uncharacteristic. I regret how it turned out, but I always said, if I can play and I feel like I’m not hurting the team, maybe some weeks I did, I feel like I did the best I could and went out there. I would expect the same of my teammates, so if I expect that from guys late in the season to play and to really play through some stuff, it’s football you’re going to have to, then I’m going to have to do the same. I felt like that’s what I was doing. So no, I think the biggest thing is just getting my body to a point where I can withstand a lot of hits or whatever it is, but also limiting some of them as much as I can. It’s a balance of all of that.”