Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke believes the best is yet to come regarding the relationship between second-year quarterback Trevor Lawrence and first-year head coach Doug Pederson.
“That’s a marriage made in heaven there because they related to each other that way (being coolheaded),” Baalke told reporters about the Lawrence-Pederson partnership, per Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “They’re both fearless, Trevor doesn’t fear anything. They’re very authentic, so when you have leaders at the quarterback position and at the head coach position that are like that, everybody else just kind of falls in line.”
The Jaguars correctly moved on from the Urban Meyer experiment in less than one full campaign and then hired Pederson last offseason. Pederson vowed during the spring the club was “hitting the reset button” with Lawrence, and the 23-year-old later pointed out he and the new coaching staff were “on the same page.”
Under Pederson, the Jaguars started at 3-7 but later won five straight games to claim the AFC South title. Jacksonville then erased a 27-0 deficit to stun the Los Angeles Chargers in the wild-card round of the playoffs before the club lost 27-20 at the Kansas City Chiefs the subsequent weekend.
Baalke added he believes Lawrence is “certainly trending” toward becoming an elite NFL quarterback.
“You got to remember now, this is the third offense in three years that Trevor has played in, counting his senior year in college,” Baalke explained. “You go from that to a new system in the NFL and then all the sudden, it’s a hit the reset button as we’ve got another offense. It’s his third offense in three years, and it takes a while to master that.”
According to ESPN, Lawrence finished his second pro regular season tied for ninth among eligible quarterbacks with a 95.2 passer rating, 15th with a 54.6 total QBR, ninth with 4,113 passing yards and tied for eighth with 25 touchdowns through the air. He threw eight interceptions in 17 games after he was picked off 17 times as a rookie.
