Quote:Trevor Lawrence
17 starts, 4,200 yards, 25 touchdowns, 10 or fewer interceptions, 65% completion rate
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We’re using Justin Herbert’s 2020 as a baseline for what is possible, though Herbert was working with a better offense and had a defense that generated more opportunities to score for that offense. This Jaguars’ roster is thin and will take time to develop. So, too, will Lawrence alongside his new coaches and coordinators. What’s fascinating here is how Urban Meyer will blend his core offensive philosophies with those of offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and passing game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. In a previous marriage of a collegiate coach and a pro-style coordinator, Chip Kelly and Pat Shurmur, we saw the blend lean heavily toward the college coach’s preferences. With Kliff Kingsbury, who keeps a run-game coordinator but is himself the passing-game coordinator, we saw his Air Raid offense veer more toward your prototypical NFL scheme.
No matter which side of the coin Meyer falls on, it seems like he will bring his tendency to run inside zone to Jacksonville. With that is the need to establish a running game, and he brought with him a pair of offensive minds that have relied fairly heavily on the run during their time with young quarterbacks.
Let’s take a look at the run/pass splits for Meyer the last three years at Ohio State, along with Schottenheimer with Mark Sanchez and Bevell with Russell Wilson (format here is runs/passes per game).
• 2016 Ohio State: 31.5/44.8
• 2017 Ohio State: 31.4/42
• 2018 Ohio State: 40/40

• 2009 Jets: 24.5/37.9
• 2010 Jets: 32.8/33.4
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• 2012 Seahawks: 25.3/33.5
• 2013 Seahawks: 26.3/31.4

Both Schottenheimer and Bevell led the league in rushing attempts with rookie quarterbacks and then were second in rushing attempts the following year, which might be instructive as to what we’ll see in Lawrence’s early days. That’s why I’m not particularly bullish on his shattering the rookie touchdown record—or coming close to it for that matter. It seems like Jacksonville has made a lot of ancillary moves to prevent a kind of Andrew Luck–like burnout, which mounted over time due to the overdose of hits and the lack of potency with his offensive scheme. In Indianapolis, the belief was that Luck could overcome these things and that the coaching staff could elevate the players around him, instead of taking the common-sense precautions at the start. It would also seem that the insistence on having a Travis Etienne–type player means that Meyer is looking to create intermediate advantages in the passing game while using the passing game to create more space to run.
While it is dangerous to hock the advantages of running the football in today’s NFL media climate, the Packers, Titans and 49ers have all achieved success by marrying their pass- and run-game concepts. It would seem as though Jacksonville is trying to do the same, but with an inside zone philosophy and not an outside zone lean.