It was Monday Night Football and the Jacksonville Jaguars were in unfamiliar territory. A home game, under the lights and in front of a national audience, against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs?
Any other year, fans would have been bracing for disaster, but not on this night. Trevor Lawrence came through when it mattered most, and the Jaguars got the win. On the Jaguars' final offensive drive, Lawrence scored in absolutely-crazy fashion.
"Just panic. Sheer panic on the ground," Lawrence said in his immediate postgame interview on the live broadcast. "We didn't have any timeouts. Got stepped on coming out. I was gonna throw it out of bounds to stop the clock... made a play."
Trevor Lawrence was every Jaguars fan in real time during his game-winning touchdown run
After a defensive pass interference call in the end zone on the Chiefs (which was a long time coming), the Jaguars got the ball at the one-yard line. It was first-and-goal for Lawrence who took the snap, got stepped on immediately and stumbled to the ground.
Lawrence tried to get up quickly, but stumbled again. To fans watching, that second stumble did, indeed, cause sheer panic to set in. For a millisecond, it was an all-out doomsday in the minds of the Jacksonville faithful.
Truly, "panic" was the only word to describe it, and Lawrence's reaction was oh, so perfect.
Somehow, some way, he was able to get up and scamper his way to the end zone for what would be the game-winning score, leaving just 23 seconds left on the clock for Mahomes and the Chiefs.
Imagine if, for a split-second, Lawrence's idea of throwing it out of bounds actually led to him taking action. He was a moment away from deciding against trying to run it in for the score.
That actually would have fit the mold for Jaguars fans. Had Lawrence thrown it away, we would have watched that replay on an endless loop just wondering what would have happened had he tucked and ran it in.
Instead, Jaguars fans actually get to enjoy the feeling of watching that happen and going on to win the game over Mahomes and Kansas City.
It's an alternate universe in which we're living. The Jaguars made more plays than the Chiefs. Lawrence made one more play than Mahomes.
Soak it all up, Jaguars fans.