The NFL hasn’t been a walk in the park for Trevor Lawrence, although he’s just two games in his young career quarterbacking a team that finished with the worst record in the NFL last year. The Jacksonville Jaguars are off to an 0-2 start, making it the first time in Lawrence’s football career he’s begun with such a record and he has struggled, throwing five interceptions in two games — tied with fellow rookie Zach Wilson for the most in the league.
“I hate losing, like I said last week, so it’s not fun, obviously,” Lawrence said. “But at the same time you’ve got to — you’ve just got to realize we’re getting better, and each week we’ve got to keep getting better, and it’s a long season. We’ve still got 15 more games, kind of like I said last week.
“That’s the mindset in the locker room, too. Everyone is frustrated. Everybody is disappointed. Obviously we worked our tails off to win this game, and we felt like we were prepared. Just got to keep getting better, though. We’ve got to make the play when our number is called and didn’t do that well enough today.”
Lawrence was just 14 of 33 for 118 yards with a touchdown in two interceptions in Sunday’s loss to the Denver Broncos. Pressured 10 times in the game, the Jaguars quarterback was just 4 of 15 on throws over 10 yards, missing receivers en route to two interceptions.
“I missed a few throws. We didn’t have really many drops today, so I think they did a good job,” Lawrence said. “Denver did a good job contesting a lot of the throws. They mixed up their coverages well. I thought I saw it pretty well, too, and I think we just got behind the sticks a little bit as the game went on…It’s really hard against a good defense to convert 3rd and 10 over and over again. That’s one thing. Just got to keep getting better. I thought we were better today than last week for sure, but just got to keep getting better.”
Only three quarterbacks since the merger have thrown more interceptions in their first two career games, one was Peyton Manning in 1998. There’s a positive take for Lawrence going forward, even if the quarterback knows a lot of work needs to be done.
“The bright spot is for sure that we really have good enough players to win these games. We’ve just got to play better,” Lawrence said. “It would be a different story if we felt like they were better than us, but I just really feel like both of these games, we had a chance if we played better, and obviously a lot of people say that, but just got to do it.
