Jaguars vs. Titans: Halftime Thoughts

What did we see in the first half of Jaguars vs. Titans?

The Jacksonville Jaguars hold a 13-0 lead over the Tennessee Titans at halftime, but what did we see in the first half?

Trevor Lawrence simply looks like a different quarterback when he has protection

Trevor Lawrence was under siege a week ago against the San Francisco 49ers, and his production reflected that. Lawrence felt the pressure the 49ers' front brought and played inconsistently inside and outside of the pocket, missing reads and putting the ball in harm's way. Against the Titans', we saw more of the same in the first half. 

On the first drive of the game, Lawrence was heavily pressured on third-down and subsequently missed a conversion to an open Christian Kirk. On the next drive, though, the offensive line bought Lawrence plenty of time, leading to his process and overall accuracy looking much more efficient and leading to a 20-yard gain from Kirk to set up Calvin Ridley's touchdown. The Jaguars need to keep Lawrence clean more often, because he is simply a different player when he is. 

The Jaguars' defense is doing what they are supposed to vs. a bad offensive line and young quarterback 

We have seen the Jaguars' defense go against a leaky offensive line and a rookie quarterback before this year. The Jaguars registered zero sacks and allowed 30 points to C.J. Stroud and a host of backup Houston Texans' offensive linemen in Week 3, casting doubt over whether they could consistently put rookie quarterbacks in poor positions. In the first half, they answered some of those questions by swarming Will Levis. 

Levis' first-half saw him complete 6-of-10 passes for 38 yards, with the Jaguars collecting two sacks and seemingly instant-pressure on every third-and-long. The Titans' passing game was mostly relegated to screens, a sign that their coaching staff was cognizant of their inability to keep their mistake-prone rookie quarterback upright. 

Ezra Cleveland gets his shot

You don't normally see offensive linemen rotate during games, but we saw that in the first-half with Walker Little playing the first two drives at left guard before being replaced by Ezra Cleveland on the third drive. Little went back in on the fourth-drive, showing that it wasn't a performance-based switch, but was simply because the Jaguars wanted Cleveland to finally get some live reps in their offense.

We have seen the Jaguars do this before. Will Richardson and A.J. Cann rotated at right guard at times in 2019. But normally, a team does this when they are not sure who the best option is. It remains to be seen if that is the case here, but don't count out the idea of Cleveland seeing future snaps.