Trevor Lawrence’s 368-yard day against the Tennessee Titans that included three touchdown passes and one ad-libbed touchdown run was enough to convince many that the No. 1 pick in the 2021 NFL Draft has arrived as a star quarterback.
Jacksonville Jaguars coach Doug Pederson isn’t quite ready to anoint Lawrence yet, though.
“He’s on his way to there,” Pederson said Tuesday on The Rich Eisen Show. “I would say he still has some room to grow and get better, but he’s definitely taken steps in the right direction.
“You go back and look at the beginning of our season and we were a little bit careless with the football, situational ball wasn’t quite there yet. … This is where his growth has come.”
Lawrence, 23, had a nightmarish rookie season with 12 touchdown and an NFL-leading 17 interceptions. After a hot start to his second season, Lawrence struggled in the month of October, throwing four touchdowns and five interceptions over a five-game stretch.
But it’s tough to imagine Lawrence being any better than he’s been since the start of November. In his last five games, the Jaguars quarterback has completed 71.8 percent of his passes with 10 touchdowns, no interceptions, and a 111.7 passer rating.
If there’s room for improvement, it’s hard to imagine there’s very much outside of consistency over the course of a year. Because if the Jaguars got the kind of play from Lawrence that it got in Week 14 on a weekly basis, he’d be a runaway NFL MVP.
