Trevor Lawrence: Jaguars’ 2023 Collapse ‘Kind of Heightens the Sense of Urgency for Everyone’

The Jacksonville Jaguars didn't get to where they wanted to in 2023. And, as history will tell it for years to come, they only have themselves to blame.

The Jaguars started the season 8-3 and were fresh off a monumental win over the Houston Texans and C.J. Stroud on the road in Week 12. But starting in Week 13, things fell apart.

Key injuries hit both sides of the ball, with Christian Kirk missing the last month-plus, Trevor Lawrence suffering three different injuries, and more. As a result, a once-promising season fell apart as the Jaguars finished 1-5 down the stretch and missed the playoffs.

"Yeah, obviously disappointed. I think everybody felt that way. And I know organization, fans, city, all that, you know, it's disappointing to finish the way we did, especially where we were at 8-3 at one point in the season," Lawrence said this week on NFL Network.

"You know, I think it's just, it's an eye opener for us. And I think it could be a good thing for us in the long run. Sometimes when you have a season that finishes that way, especially not making the playoffs and the position that we were in, it kind of heightens the sense of urgency for everyone."

The hope for the Jaguars now is that the disaster that was the end of the 2023 season will help prevent it from happening again. The Jaguars bought into their own hype far too many times last season. In 2024, they can't afford to do it again.

"We know, all right, we're not where we need to be. We know we're not where we want to be. And you're coming off that instead of, you know, maybe a year maybe we make the playoffs. We found a way to make the playoffs this year, and we don't learn the lessons we do because we think we're a little bit better than maybe we are. So I think it could heighten the sense of urgency, you could, you know, put a little pressure on us in a good way. And we need that," Lawrence said.

"And, you know, obviously, we got to get better this offseason. I think we got a good core group of guys, and I trust the people we have in place. And we just got to find ways to individually improve and improve as a team, and then find a way to handle adversity a little bit better."

Handling adversity was something the Jaguars excelled at during their magical run to the playoffs in 2022. The Jaguars pulled themselves from the gutter in the second-half of the season and rattled off win after win, even in long-short scenarios.

They didn't do the same last year, though. Now, they need to find out why.

"I thought the ups and downs this season, we didn't handle as good as we did the year before. So just find a way to finish," Lawrence said. "You got to play your best ball at the end of the year. And we played our best ball kind of beginning and middle of the year instead of the end. And that was that was obviously not what you want when you want to make a run and push in the playoffs."