Trevor Lawrence Gears Up for a Week 1 Showdown Against the Commanders

After being named a captain for the second time in his short career, the young signal-caller is set to lead the charge.

Three more days and the wait will finally be over for regular season Jaguars football. After an eventful offseason, a productive training camp, and pre-season action, the next test will come from the highly regarded Washington Commanders' defense.

Ivan Lambert of Commanders Wire noted that the unit ranked 16th in sacks last season, 9th in quarterback knockdowns, 16th in QB hurries, and 7th in yards after the catch. These rankings indicate that they utilize an aggressive and highly physical style of play to put pressure on opposing offensive personnel to try and throw them off their game.

The loss of star defensive tackle Matthew Ioannidis in free agency and young phenom Chase Young to injury leaves this defense in a more vulnerable spot entering early season play, one that quarterback Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars intend to capitalize on with a sound offensive game plan.

“Yes and no, yes because I’m confident in what we’re doing and the plan we’ve put together so far, and I feel great about it,” Lawrence said when asked about the Commanders' defense. “I think the guys love it. I know we’re really excited. But in the same way, we don’t know exactly what they’re going to do because the first couple of games of the season are always like that. 

"You’re going off of last year’s film and the past, and obviously the same defensive coordinator but you never know what kind of new wrinkles they’re going to have. Obviously, this is a team where Coach Pederson and Press (Offensive Coordinator Press Taylor), a lot of our coaches played against some of those teams in the same division for a while. They have a history so I’m sure they’ll have a plan for us, just like we have a plan for them. It’s really about executing that and adjusting as you go on, okay, what are they actually doing, and making those in-game adjustments. But, yes, I’m really excited and I think we’ve got a great plan.”

A huge factor in the development of the offensive game plan is the establishment of a team identity. For Trevor Lawrence, a full offseason’s work and time to gel with teammates and the new coaching staff has made that identity clear.

“Offensively, I think we’re a really hardnose team up front,” Lawrence said. “I think we can run the ball. I think we’re going to create a lot of explosives down the field. That’s something that we’re really confident in with the guys we have. We have some great backs, and that goes with our offensive commandments; protect the football, create explosives, ball security, all those things. There’s more of them too, that we could talk about. But that’s what we live by and that’s who we try to be.”

Most importantly, coming off a losing campaign and one shrouded in numerous distractions, the right mindset is essential to have a chance to win on Sundays. The other side of that coin is to not let one loss deter any progress made or lose hope. For Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars, a win in week one is not necessarily needed to validate everything.

“I wouldn’t phrase it that way, that’s a tricky one there, but a win, obviously, that’s the plan, that’s the goal,” Lawrence said. \

“We feel great about our game plan and how we’ve prepared ourselves. But, at the same time, if you lose the first game, you’ve got sixteen more. You can still make the playoffs, you still got everything ahead of you. So, we’re going to take it as we go, and honestly, I feel really confident, so there’s no thought of losing, but there’s no thought of ‘if we lost this game, all the work we’ve done is gone’ that’s not how it works either. So, it’s just about having that mindset.”

A win for the Jaguars would snap a 16-game losing streak against NFC opponents and a 1-0 start to the 2022 campaign would significantly improve confidence in the locker room moving forward.

“Definitely,” Lawrence said. “I think, to your point though, the confidence that would bring, to be able to show the work we’ve put in and where I feel like we are as a tea, how much we’ve improved, and how prepared we are. To be able to get a win, to start the season 1-0, I think it would be huge for our team, this city, the fan base, all the way around. So, that’s the plan.”