Jacksonville Jaguars: 5 players who must show out vs Bengals

Jacksonville Jaguars who must show out No. 5 – QB Trevor Lawrence

One of the perks of being an NFL quarterback is that you get more praise than you deserve when your team is winning and get plenty of blame when they’re losing. There’s no doubt rookie Trevor Lawrence has shown flashes early in his NFL career but he’s also made some head-scratching throws. More recently, he played a big role in the Jaguars’ failed flea-flicker that Cardinals cornerback Byron Murphy returned 29 yards for a touchdown.

Sure, left guard Andrew Norwell deserves blame for his “whirly bird” but Lawrence should have thrown the ball out of bounds. On the bright side, he accepted as much in a recent sitdown with the local media. The former Clemson Tiger says he feels he’s improving, especially when going through his reads.

Offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell also told the local media that you don’t want to take Lawrence’s aggressiveness again. Instead, the coaching staff is working with him to ensure that he keeps trending up. If he can avoid turning the ball over and score a couple of touchdowns, the Jags may be able to pull the upset.

It could be argued that Lawrence hasn’t lived up to his draft billing but that would be unrealistic. Regardless of how talented the Jaguars quarterback is, he’s going to experience a learning curve just like most rookies.

The Jaguars are a young team and it will be cool to see them grow along with Lawrence. However, they need to take care of business against the Bengals before they can think of the future.