The 2023 Jaguars Provide Cautionary Tale for 2024 Packers
GREEN BAY, Wis. – The hot-shot young quarterback led his team to a memorable victory in the wild-card round, then fell just short of slaying the No. 1 seed on the road.
While the season ended in bitter disappointment with an opportunity that slipped through their fingers, everyone – players and coaches, fans and national pundits – saw greatness on the horizon.
Those two sentences describe the 2023 Green Bay Packers, yes. They also describe the 2022 Jacksonville Jaguars.
In 2022, the Jaguars were 4-8 before catching fire. Led by quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick of the 2021 NFL Draft, the Jaguars rallied to five consecutive victories and won the AFC South to earn the No. 4 seed.
In the wild-card round, Lawrence threw four touchdown passes as the Jaguars incredibly overcame a 27-0 deficit to stun the Chargers 31-30. In the divisional round at the mighty Chiefs, the Jaguars trailed 20-17 in the fourth quarter before losing 27-20.
Big things were expected of the Jaguars in 2023, and why not? Lawrence was coming off a season of 4,113 passing yards and 30 total touchdowns. With running back Travis Etienne, receiver Christian Kirk, tight end Evan Engram and the acquisition of receiver Calvin Ridley, the Jaguars’ offense looked like a juggernaut. Meanwhile, the defense finished just outside the top 10 in points allowed.
All seemed right on course during the first half of the 2023 season. A five-game winning streak that included wins at Buffalo, New Orleans and Pittsburgh sent them to 6-2. The Jaguars were destroyed at home by San Francisco after the bye but righted the ship with back-to-back wins over Tennessee and Houston to take an 8-3 record into December.
At that point, their playoff chances were 98 percent, according to ESPN’s Power Football Index.
Then came the meltdown of all meltdowns. The Jaguars lost four in a row before beating woeful Carolina. That set up a win-and-in matchup at Tennessee, which was 5-11.
The Jaguars lost 28-20.
The 2023 Jaguars should be the cautionary tale for the 2024 Packers. They should be referenced by coach Matt LaFleur when the players arrive for the start of offseason workouts on April 15. They should be referenced again as the players go their separate ways for the break between the June minicamp and the start of training camp in late July.
Games, divisions and championships are won through work, preparation and discipline. Not potential, projection and hype.
In the locker room after the season-ending loss at San Francisco, veteran outside linebacker Preston Smith struck the right tone.
“We’ve got to have a championship offseason so everything rolls into the season because, at the end of the day, those games come back to following your training, trusting your technique and trusting everything you worked hard for this offseason,” Smith said.
“Coming into this next season, we’ve got to focus on the things that we can improve on, make sure that our weaknesses are our strengths, and we improve on the things we’re good at.”
The expectations for Green Bay revolve around the rapid ascension of quarterback Jordan Love, who dominated the second half of the season with 18 touchdowns vs. one interception during the final eight games of the regular season and three more touchdowns in the playoff rout of the Cowboys.
However, even with the addition of Ridley to provide a fearsome passing attack, Lawrence went from 25 touchdowns, eight interceptions and a 95.2 passer rating in 2022 to 21 touchdowns, 14 interceptions and an 88.5 rating during an injury-plagued 2023.
So, while it’s easy to project Love as having an MVP sort of season next year, it’s only a projection. He’s going to have to earn it, just like everyone else.
Were the Jaguars guilty of buying into the type of hype that’s going to surround the Packers? Maybe, maybe not, but there wasn’t a full buy-in to the message being preached by Super Bowl-champion coach Doug Pederson.
“You just can't let your preparation slip. You can't let a rep in practice go by without making sure it's done properly,” Pederson said at his season-ending news conference. “That's me, that's all the coaches, all the players. It's everybody, all together, making sure that doesn't happen.”
LaFleur is aware that next season will be different. The team stayed strong through tough times this year. Will that all-for-one/one-for-all mentality continue with the projection of good times? Will the players strive to chase greatness rather than just read about it?
“That’s one of the things I re-iterated to our guys is just understand the expectations going into this season are not going to be the same expectations going into next season,” LaFleur said. “And they’ve earned that. But with that, you better put in the work because nothing’s guaranteed. So, they’re going to have to get to work here quickly. Give a couple days to decompress and then get back on the grind.”
A coach can only do so much, especially during the offseason. It will be up to the players to make it happen. To be the 2023 Lions instead of the 2023 Jaguars, the players must maximize every opportunity to get better while keeping that same mindset that allowed them to win four consecutive games down the stretch.
“Especially with the talent that we’ve got in each room on our team, just play football, just trust the process, make sure you’re doing the little things right, and let everything else take care of itself,” left guard Elgton Jenkins said. “The standard is going to be the standard, the expectation is going to be the expectation. As long as you’re getting better individually, we can be better as a whole.”
