The Kansas City Chiefs beat the Philadelphia Eagles to win Super Bowl 57. Like most teams that have gone on to raise the Lombardi Trophy, the Chiefs got a few breaks here are there but didn’t get there by mistake. This was their third Super Bowl appearance in the last four years and had to beat several talented teams, such as the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Cincinnati Bengals, along the way.
While watching the Super Bowl from home must not be a pleasant feeling, the Jaguars should feel good about their chances of appearing in it next year, and here are three realistic reasons they have a realistic shot.
3. Most of the Jacksonville Jaguars core from last year will return in 2023
It’s hard to keep teams together for a long time due to salary cap rules but most of the players that were on the Jaguars’ roster last year will return in 2023 even though they’ll have a limited amount of cap space.
There are a handful of key contributors on the Jacksonville roster that are set to become free agents but right tackle Jawaan Taylor, tight end Evan Engram, and defensive end Arden Key are arguably the biggest three.
There’s a good chance the Jags won’t be able to bring all of them back but even if they lose them, they will still have enough talent on both sides of the ball to make a playoff run next in 2023. While they have to fill a few roster holes in the offseason, none of them is a glaring weakness and they should be able to address all of them in this year’s NFL Draft.
2. HC Doug Pederson will have the Jacksonville Jaguars in a position to compete
It took the Jaguars nearly two months to fill their head coach vacancy following the dismissal of Urban Meyer in December 2021. In the end, the team’s leadership chose Doug Pederson for the position and given how much the Jags improved last year, the wait was worth it.
Pederson said when he was hired that fixing the Jaguars wasn’t going to be an easy task and warned everyone that it could take a while. However, they went from last to first in the AFC South, finished the season with a winning record, and made the playoffs for the first time since 2017. Jacksonville ultimately fell to the Chiefs in the Division Round of the Playoffs. That’s not probably the way the Jags would have liked their season to end but despite the loss, there’s no doubt Pederson’s first year at the helm was a resounding success.
Pederson doesn’t seem like the kind of head coach that will rest on his laurels after making the playoffs in his first year with the Jaguars. Instead, he will surely be motivated to get over the bump next season. He will surely look back at all the things Jacksonville could have done better in 2022 and search for a potential solution.
Despite the fact that Pederson lost the Head Coach of the Year Award to Brian Daboll, who also turned the New Gianats around, he showed from the get-go, he was the right coach for the Jaguars. Pederson did a great job of helping players bounce back from the Urban Meyer fiasco and put them in a position to succeed.
1. The Jacksonville Jaguars have the right QB in Trevor Lawrence
Patrick Mahomes has been the top quarterback in the NFL since the Chiefs made him a first-round draft pick in 2017 but he isn’t the only talented player on their roster. However, he played a huge role in the dismantling of the Eagles in the Super Bowl.
Quarterbacks often more praise and blame than they deserve but there’s no denying that having a good one will increase your odds of winning a championship. Fortunately for the Jaguars, they have Trevor Lawrence, who made a huge leap in his sophomore season and seems to be poised to be even better in 2023.
Lawrence more than doubled his touchdown total from 2021 and cut his number of interceptions to more than half. As a matter of fact, all his numbers went up across the board.
Wins aren’t a good way to measure a quarterback’s performance and while Trevor Lawrence alone didn’t beat the Las Vegas Raiders, the Dallas Cowboys, the Baltimore Ravens and later the Los Angeles Chargers in the playoffs, he was a huge reason the Jaguars came on top. Jacksonville trailed in all those games but ultimately came back and won all of them and it wouldn’t have been possible without Lawrence.
Just a few days ago, Lawrence wrote a letter to fans about developing a chip on his shoulder after all the criticism and doubt that surfaced following his underwhelming rookie campaign. In it, he says last season was just the beginning, and given how talented he is, it wouldn’t be shocking to see him and the Jaguars play in the next Super Bowl.