There’s a giant leap going from college to the NFL, and we saw an example of that on Sunday.
In his last full season at Clemson, Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the number one overall pick in this year’s draft, threw only five interceptions. However, in his first NFL game against the Texans, Lawrence almost equaled that mark.
Lawrence finished the game 28/51 for 332 yards with three touchdowns and three interceptions as the Jags(0-1) were routed by the Texans(1-0) 37-21 at NRG Stadium.
While Lawrence was sacked once, he was under pressure by the Texans’ defense. Despite the interceptions, Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer, who was also making his NFL debut, still has a lot of faith in Lawrence.
“I love Trevor,” Meyer said after the game. “We all do. Trevor is just going to get better and better and better. (He) had a great week of work. Offensive football is about 11 guys doing their job, and the great offenses we’ve all witnessed, and we’ve all been a part of, are when 11 guys are doing their job and executing, and that didn’t happen. So Trevor is going to be great.”
Lawrence completed only 54% of his passes on Sunday and was inaccurate at times against Houston, which surprised Meyer.
“He’s a very accurate passer, and today at times, he wasn’t,” Meyer said. “So we’ve got to find out why.”
According to Lawrence, he didn’t get the job done on Sunday.
“Yeah, obviously sucks,” Lawrence said. “Losing is always hard, especially when you feel like you are prepared and had a great week. Really think we were ready and obviously didn’t play well. It starts with me. I didn’t play well for sure. I played really bad tonight.”
While disappointed in the loss, Lawrence, who is the only rookie in franchise history to throw for 300-plus yards and at least three touchdowns in a single game and is one of nine players in NFL history to throw for 300-plus yards and three touchdowns in their first career start. still has confidence in his team.
“I still believe in this team,” he said. “I still know what we are capable of. We did some good things. We started off with some penalties, three and out. But after that, we had a couple good drives. Hitting some big plays. There’s a lot of good things there, and we have to keep doing those and learn from the bad. We have to watch it and learn from it for sure but then flip the page. It’s a long season; we can’t let this snowball. We have to move on and go win next week. That’s where we are going to start at, but it’s definitely disappointing for sure.”
This game was not all on Lawrence, especially when considering Jacksonville’s defense, which gave up 37 points, including 449 yards of total offense on Sunday. Tough loss for Jacksonville, and a rough start for Lawrence, but the future is still bright for him and this team.
