With five seconds left in London and Jacksonville facing fourth and eight from the Miami 44, the Jaguars planned to throw the ball to the end zone, in the hopes of breaking a 20-20 tie. Thanks to a Miami timeout, the Jaguars changed their minds.
Jacksonville quarterback Trevor Lawrence explained to PFT by phone from London after the 23-20 win that the timeout prompted the alteration in the offense’s approach.
“Before they called the timeout, we came out of the huddle, that’s what we had called,” Lawrence said. “Take a shot deep . . . just try to make a play, come down with it. They called a timeout I guess they wanted to kind of regroup, Miami did. I was kind of saying the whole time, ‘Let’s try to get something quick. You know we had five seconds. I kept telling [offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell and passing-game coordinator Brian Schottenheimer] I think we’ve got time. And then they called the timeout and we just kind of went to another answer we had, we’re trying to get down and call timeout before the clock expired. I mean, five seconds is cutting it close for a play like that. Usually we like to have six or seven. And we just were like, we thought we had a better shot to get the ball completed, get down, call timeout, to put us in a better situation to hit the field goal.”
Lawrence said that they work on that play a lot during two-minute periods in practice.
“We always talk about it,” Lawrence said. “But it’s just one you usually have a set amount of time, but five seconds honestly was less than what we needed. We just knew we had to get down quick. But it was also tough because it was fourth and seven or eight. So you can’t get down too quick, you’ve got to get the first down. Laviska [Shenault] did a great job of catching it, getting the first down, getting down, and saving one second. It was just really cool to win a game that way.”
Lawrence added that, before the snap, he had to hold a defensive back in place with his eyes, in order to ensure that Shenault could make the catch and gain the yards.
“The thing that Miami did a good job of is they had a robber in the middle of the field, number 29, was just kind of sitting there around 10 or 12 yards, watching my eyes. I kind of had to hold him on the snap for a quick second and then throw the inside slant to Laviska.
Lawrence added that the Dolphins covered all Jaguarss receivers at roughly six yards off the line, with the robber in the middle who was reading the qurterback’s eyes to see who would be breaking to the middle of the field. Lawrence didn’t let his own eyes betray the situation; instead, he used his eyes to keep Brandon Jones from moving toward Shenault.
So it worked. The second 20-game losing streak in league history has ended. And it was all set up because the Dolphins gave the Jaguars a chance to change their minds by calling that timeout.