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Former NFL Star Trashes Trevor Lawrence Over Jaguars Firing Doug Pederson

Andy Nesbitt

Trevor Lawrence has won just one playoff game so far in his career.
Trevor Lawrence has won just one playoff game so far in his career. / Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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The Jacksonville Jaguars wasted little time in making a big move after their dreadful 2024 season came to an end, as they fired coach Doug Pederson on Monday morning, just hours after their Week 18 loss to the Indianapolis Colts.

The Jaguars had high hopes that Pederson, who led the Eagles to a Super Bowl title in 2018, would be able to turn quarterback Trevor Lawrence into a star and make the franchise perennial contenders. Instead, Pederson was able to win just one playoff game during his three years and was shown the door after the Jaguars finished 3-14 this season.

While the firing wasn't much of a surprise, former NFL running back LeSean McCoy took issue with it and called out Lawrence for not being a good quarterback. During FS1's The Facility on Monday, McCoy blasted Lawrence and took issue with teams firing coaches because of mediocre quarterbacks.

“If you look at his whole path, he’s actually one of the coordinators that coached for the Chiefs that actually called plays,” McCoy said. “He does that well, then he goes to Philadelphia. What’s he do there? He wins a championship. They don’t win it with Carson Wentz; it was with Nick Foles…. And then he goes to Jacksonville, they say, ‘We need somebody to save our quarterback because he’s really not that good, but we took him No. 1 pick overall, so we got to do something about it.’ "

“You bring him in there, he helps Trevor Lawrence out, but how much can you help a guy that’s not that good? And then you pay these quarterbacks, give them all this money, and when they don’t do well because they’re not that good of a player, and now you gotta blame somebody. Who do you blame? Let’s blame the head coach. But you’re going to blame a winning head coach that’s been winning his whole life. It don’t make sense.”

Here are McCoy's full comments:

The Jaguars are hoping their next coach will be able to take Lawrence to the next level. If not, there could be a lot more bad years for a franchise that has struggled to put together winning seasons.

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Andy Nesbitt
ANDY NESBITT

Andy Nesbitt is the assistant managing editor of audience engagement at Sports Illustrated. He works closely with the Breaking and Trending News team to shape SI’s daily coverage across all sports. A 20-year veteran of the sports media business, he has worked for Fox Sports, For the Win, The Boston Globe and NBC Sports, having joined SI in February 2023. Nesbitt is a golf fanatic who desperately wants to see the Super Bowl played on a Saturday night.

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