At one point in October, Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer said he’d like his team to reach 250 yards rushing and passing in the same game.
It was an unlikely, farfetched goal — one Jacksonville has only once come remotely close to reaching in the Week Five loss to Tennessee. On that Sunday, the club had 256 yards passing and 198 yards rushing.
In Sunday’s ugly 30-10 loss to San Francisco, the Jaguars had just 200 total yards. The club had just three points until James Robinson’s 1-yard touchdown with 3:04 left in the fourth quarter to cap an eight-play, 75-yard drive.
But when asked about quarterback Trevor Lawrence at his Monday press conference, Meyer had a particularly positive assessment of the 2021 No. 1 overall pick.
“Actually, one of his better games,” Meyer said. “There was some surrounding cast that at times didn’t do very well. But Trevor would be the first one to tell you when he doesn’t play well. In my mind, he played well. Good enough? No, not good enough. But played well, made some great throws, scrambled when he had to, made the right reads. So we’ve just got to put it together in all areas and we’re not right now.”
Lawrence finished 16-of-25 passing for 158 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions, one of his lowest outputs of the season. He was also sacked three times, though he did have 23 yards on three carries.
No one should proclaim a player a bust after 10 games, and Lawrence has shown flashes of his potential. But Lawrence has completed only 58 percent of his passes for 2,141 yards with eight touchdowns and nine interceptions so far as a rookie.
If Sunday’s performance was one of Lawrence’s best, there’s a lot of room for him to grow to solidify himself as Jacksonville’s long-term solution at quarterback.