Trevor Lawrence’s chances of playing Sunday in a divisional matchup against the Tennessee Titans are in question after the Jacksonville Jaguars’ second-year quarterback missed practices both Wednesday and Thursday.
Earlier this week, Lawrence said he’ll play Sunday if he can, but he’s at the mercy of the pace that his toe heals from a sprain suffered in a Week 13 loss to the Detroit Lions. On Thursday, offensive coordinator Press Taylor said that Lawrence’s availability this weekend won’t have anything to do with pain tolerance.
“There’s never been a question of his toughness and his availability for the team, I don’t think,” Taylor said of Lawrence. “I think everybody feels very confident that if Trevor is going to play if Trevor has the ability to. There’s times when it’s our decision to protect players from themselves. Same thing with Travis [Etienne]. There was a possibility of Travis playing against Baltimore, and we decided to pull the plug on that just to protect him from himself.”
Etienne had only two touches in a Week 12 game against the Baltimore Ravens before suffering a foot injury and sitting out the rest of the day. After the game, Jaguars coach Doug Pederson told reporters that Etienne was cleared to return, but the team kept him out of action out of an abundance of caution.
Last week, the Jaguars followed a similar playbook when they decided to designate Andre Cisco as inactive, despite Pederson telling reporters a day later that “he was good” and kept out just to be safe.
The Jaguars will likely try to avoid doing the same with Lawrence if they can. While the coaching staff (and Lawrence even) have expressed confidence in backup C.J. Beathard, the reality is that the team’s chances at beating the Titans would be significantly hurt if Lawrence isn’t able to play.
Through 12 games this season, Lawrence has 17 touchdowns with six interceptions and a 92.8 passer rating, 12th best in the NFL among starting quarterbacks. Lawrence hasn’t missed a game yet in his NFL career.
