PFF: Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence Ranked Top-5 in Short and Deep Passing Grade in 2023

While much of the analysis of the 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars and Trevor Lawrence's third season have seen the team ad signal-caller come under fire, there continues to be data trends that suggest the Jaguars' franchise passer didn't struggle as much as narratives indicate.

The latest comes from Pro Football Focus,quarterbacks who listed the top-10 quartebacks by passing grade on short, intermediate and deep throws.

While Lawrence's name was not present on the intermediate list, he was tied for No. 3 as a short passer and ranked No. 5 as a deep passer.

"An interesting anomaly on this list is that, despite having the third-highest passing grade on short throws, Trevor Lawrence threw more interceptions (six) than touchdowns (four). The only other qualifying quarterback to achieve this distinction is his new teammate Mac Jones, who ranked dead last out of 29 qualifying quarterbacks in short passing grade (57.0)," PFF wrote.

"Of note is that three of Lawrence’s six interceptions were the result of drops by receivers that landed in defenders’ arms and another was the result of an uncalled defensive pass interference."

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.

Lawrence sustained four different injuries last fall that forced him to miss valuable practice time and play in several games with injuries: a knee injury in Week 6, an ankle injury in Week 13, a concussion in Week 15, and then finally a shoulder injury in Week 16 that forced him to miss his first-career start.

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 in April.

"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.”