Jaguars committed to getting WR Laviska Shenault involved in 2022

While the Jacksonville Jaguars finished the 2021 regular season on a strong note, beating the Indianapolis Colts in Week 18, things didn’t go the way they probably expected and several players, including wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr., underperformed.

After showing promise as a rookie, Shenault hauled in 63 receptions for 619 yards with no touchdowns. While those aren’t hideous numbers, they’re not what you would want from a player that was supposed to have a breakout campaign. Nevertheless, the Jaguars are ready to put 2021 behind and get Viska involved on offense. General manager Trent Baalke met with the media at the NFL Scouting Combine and was asked about potentially trading Shenault. Baalke responded with a ringing endorsement of the receiver.

"I don’t know where that would even come from. We’re high on Laviska. He does a lot of good things, he’s an interesting… Obviously, at his size and his speed and the things that he can do, we’ve got to find ways to get him the ball. That’s not my job, that’s coach’s job, so that’d be a great question for him, but by no means is the ship sailed on Laviska."

The Jaguars took Shenault in the second round of the 2020 pick. As a rookie, the former Colorado Buffalo caught 58 passes for 600 yards with five touchdowns and showed a penchant for breaking tackles. Last year, he showed his ability to make plays after the catch but averaged 0.5 less per reception. Outside of his Week 4 performance (six catches, 99 receiving yards), he wasn’t much of a factor throughout most of the season. Nevertheless, it’s encouraging to see the team’s brass committing to helping Shenault get back on track in 2022.

The Jaguars need to put Laviska Shenault in a position to succeed.

As Baalke pointed out, there were no reports the Jaguars were interested in trading but it wouldn’t have been shocking to see the Jags shop Shenault with Doug Pederson now at the helm. After all, there’s always a roster shakeup whenever there’s a new coaching staff in place and teams in need of help at wide receiver might see him a reclamation project.

Ok, so the Jaguars won’t be trading Shenault and want to get him the ball. They need to put him in a position to succeed then. The previous coaching staff didn’t seem to know how to maximize his skillset and often designed plays where they would get him the ball close to the line of scrimmage and ask him to make plays. That rarely worked.

Shenault isn’t a speedster but he can get deep and the new coaching staff needs to take advantage of that instead of expecting him to break tackles in every single play. Gus Logue of Sports Illustrated points out that the Jaguars wide receiver was 6-of-10 on deep targets for 145 yards and two touchdowns in 2020, so it’s clear he isn’t a one-trick pony.  Here’s a 50-yard reception he had against the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Jaguars need to get Trevor Lawrence more weapons but they also need to get the most out of the players they currently have, and that includes Laviska Shenault and as Baalke said, that will be Doug Pederson’s job.