Lawrence's Early Development Sets the Stage For Jaguars' Offseason
When Trevor Lawrence arrived in town, joining the Jacksonville Jaguars, back in April, it was with visions of championships and expectations of a future franchise quarterback. Those things can all still be possible, but that doesn’t mean there won’t first be growing pains. Rookie quarterbacks—even generational prospects—have to adjust to the league, the speed and the sheer overall talent.
For Head Coach Urban Meyer, he’d rather Lawrence take those lumps now, in May, versus in game in October.
“He had a great day [Wednesday], okay day [Thursday],” Meyer told reporters following Thursday’s practice.
“A big reason is red zone emphasis and that’s obviously a very hard area of the field. The field changes, especially against NFL talent all over the field and defense had the upper hand [Thursday]. It wasn’t just him. So, it’s just [a] new area of the field, which is why you spend so much time down there practicing. It’s a completely different game. [He was] very accurate yesterday, today he’s just—we all struggled, not just him, offensively.”
All of those reps practicing with new teammates can be the most crucial part of these offseason practices. Because building true chemistry takes time; it can’t be forced or manufactured overnight.
Center Brandon Linder will be the player Lawrence must work with every single play, and therefore must find that chemistry even sooner to make the whole offense click..
“That’s just repetition,” agreed Linder. “That just happens over time and getting reps with the kid. I mean that’s pretty much how that happens…We haven’t had too much conversation yet, just a little bit and on the field, it hasn’t been too much.”
While that partnership is coming along, one thing about Lawrence does stand out for the veteran offensive lineman.
“The kid’s won everywhere he’s been, and I mean he throws a damn good ball, that I’ve seen out there. But I’m excited, I know he’s excited, his whole team’s excited and so he seems good.”
Added receiver Marvin Jones, “it’s been a short time, but obviously the guy’s gifted. You can see it when he throws the ball. We’ve gotten some good work. There’s a lot of people here so everybody’s kind of been rotating and getting a feel of the offense and stuff like that. So far so good.”
For Lawrence’s part, he’s working to make those connections and create a simpler transition for all involved, in whatever way he can. It starts by simply learning the names of all his new teammates, as Lawrence explained to reporters earlier this week while on a call about the Gatorade Player of the Year.
“It almost felt like the first day of school, coming here the first day you're trying to like meet everyone remember everybody's names; that’s something that's important to me, I always try to like remember people's names so I'm getting there. I don't know everyone's names yet but we're getting close.
"So, just little things like that and then going out there, you got a new practice routine and it's different than I feel from college, you got more open windows of time. I mean as rookies we're kind of here for majority of the day, but we still got some open pockets of time where we got to kind of lay it out…so little things like that, that it's cool to have veterans around you because they do those things and they can kind of show you because coming from college, you're on a tight schedule.
“I think the biggest thing, just learn how to be a pro with things like that.”
