Jaguars HC Doug Pederson on Trevor Lawrence: Nothing’s too big for him

There are several reasons the Jacksonville Jaguars hired Doug Pederson as their head coach. One of the biggest ones was his ability to work with quarterbacks, and Trevor Lawrence needed plenty of help after experiencing plenty of adversity in his rookie year. So far, the decision to bring in Pederson has worked.

Lawrence has made progress under Pederson and is coming off his best performance as a pro, a 28-27 victory over the Baltimore Ravens. The former Clemson Tiger completed 78.28 percent of his passes with three touchdowns and no interceptions but more importantly, he lead the game-winning drive. In the days following the game, Pederson had a sitdown with Jade McCarthy of the 33rd Team and talked about how much Trevor Lawrence has grown since the end of the 2021 season.

“It’s just a step in the right direction for him”, Pederson said. “He’s come a long way in a short period of time. He’s even faced with a lot of adversity in his short career, a young career here in Jacksonville, and what we’ve seen over the first 10 games, now the 11th game is just the maturity that nothing’s too big for him and the growth that he’s taken from say Week 1 and 2 to know are all steps in the right direction”.

“My hat’s off to him. He wants to be coached, he wants to be coached hard. He’s a sponge, he sees the field extremely well, when you talk to him between series, he understands what he’s seeing. We’re just giving him an opportunity to be successful”, Pederson said.

Lawrence’s success isn’t particularly surprising. After all, he was the consensus top quarterback in last year’s draft. Having said that doubts about him being a true franchise quarterback had started to creep in. Sure, all his numbers were improved but he had had several changes to rally from behind this season and he fell flat every single time. That all changed against the Ravens. Here’s Pederson’s full exchange with McCarthy.

Jaguars HC Doug Pederson was the right man to help Trevor Lawrence

One of the most impressive aspects of Lawrence’s growth in Year 2 is that he’s been able to bounce back from a disastrous rookie campaign. From the outside, it’s kind of hard to tell the real impact of Meyer and the dysfunction he brought to the team but every now and then, players have shed some light on it. Following the Jags’ Week 12 win, safety Andrew Wingard told the media he was glad for Lawrence after having to deal with Urban Meyer in 2021.

Pederson told McCarthy that they had to start from ground zero. Not from a mechanical standpoint but rather work on the mental side of the game and the preparation side. And all that has led to steady growth, “I really think these last three games for him have been really good. Stepping stones sort of in that direction”.

In spite of making strides early in the 2022 season, Lawrence was somewhat inconsistent and made several puzzling mistakes that ended up having a big impact on the outcome of a couple of games. But since losing to the Broncos, he’s been highly efficient, completing 76.85 percent of his passes for 815 touchdowns with six touchdowns and no interceptions.

Trevor Lawrence rightfully deserves the spotlight following such a big win but Doug Pederson also deserves credit for working with him and putting him in a position to succeed.