The Jacksonville Jaguars are still waiting for Trevor Lawrence to live up to the contract extension he signed in the offseason. Although he’s been far from great, he played relatively well in the loss to the Houston Texans. That led head coach Doug Pederson to bat for his quarterback.
Pederson met with the local press one day after the loss to the Texans. With a calmer demeanor than he showed right after the game, he said that he’ll put the game in Lawrence’s hand because he gives them a better chance to win.
“A great example for me, with him and with any really any quarterback. We missed Christian early in the third quarter. Think it was a second play. We missed him on a deep, maybe he scores, I don’t know. The easy thing would have been second-and-10, run the football. Not going to do that. I mean, yes, I will. But in this case, no,” Pederson responded when asked about his quarterback’s current slump. “I want Trevor. You got to put the ball in his hands, right?”
Pederson continued, “He’s our guy, and you got to put the ball in his hands. And we’re going to continue to trust him. I’m going to continue to do that. So the next play, we throw it again, but he was high to Gabe. So these are all lessons that he as a player has to understand. And the adversity that’s going to come with, ‘Oh shoot, I just missed that one, but coach might dial up another one on this play. Let me make that. You have to flush the first one to make the next one. He’s seeing the field well, we’re just not hitting.”
As players, those are plays we just have to make. He would stand up here and tell you the same thing, so I don’t think I’m speaking out of turn, right when I say that he knows he’s got to make those throws. Those are NFL big-time throws, so we just got to keep working. He does it in practice during the week. He works with those guys when special teams are going, or defense is going. And yeah, I think, the more we keep working at it, the better chances of hitting them in the future.”
