Friday Night Logue: Help Needed

How can the Jaguars better support Trevor Lawrence moving forward?

There are a lot of issues with the Jacksonville Jaguars, to put it mildly. Its decorated head coach looks/acts washed; its general manager is hesitant to spend the league-leading money he has available to add players; the defense can’t cover anyone, anytime, anywhere; the offense hasn’t been watchable for what feels like decades; and its owner’s attempted solutions to each of these areas in the past have proved less fruitful than a berry farmon the south pole.

All these problems were evident in Jacksonville’s latest blowout loss against the 2-5, Russell Wilson-less Seahawks. The only viable solution that the Jaguars can point to is its crown jewels in James Robinson and Trevor Lawrence. (Sure, it has a few other young players with potential, but the same can be said for every other NFL team, and having a bounty of resources via cap space and draft capital has been an exciting process with poor results to date.)

In the aftermath of the Leonard Fournette era, the Jaguars have managed to build an impressive run game as its offensive line built for the 2017 fourth overall draft pick is now creating holes for a 2020 undrafted free agent. Behind Robinson, Jacksonville’s rushing attack entered its week 7 bye ranked sixth in expected points added per play and first in success rate.

Thanks to Jacksonville’s efficient run game, the offense was doing okay despite some rookie mistakes and turnovers from Lawrence early in the season. But when Robinson was ruled out of Sunday’s contest after just eight offensive snaps, the Jaguars were forced to turn completely to Lawrence and the passing game to pull out a win in a tough away environment.

Jacksonville was able to get into manageable situations to move the chains (it averaged 6.2 yards to go on third downs last week per Sharp Football Stats) as Lawrence dinked and dunked his way to a 5.1 average depth of target. He took the underneath routes on early downs, but when third down rolled around and Lawrence was forced to throw past the sticks, he got no help from his teammates.

Here’s several examples of poor blocking, receiving, or both on third downs against Seattle.

pic.twitter.com/ibVDQ5gh6u

— Burner #261 (@notgus_logue) November 5, 2021

You can nitpick about Lawrence here and there, but there are clear mistakes being made by other Jaguars players in key situations. As bad as some of the players look, it makes the organization look worse, as neither the front office nor the coaching staff is having success putting the right players around Lawrence to succeed.

When Lawrence needs to deliver on true dropbacks or high leverage circumstances like third downs, he simply needs better players on the receiving end. The moral of Jacksonville’s offense for the first half of this season is that James Robinson, and Darrell Bevell’s usage of play action and run-pass option plays built off Robinson, can only carry this offense so far -- and Lawrence can’t pick up the rest of the slack by himself.

Other Thoughts:

• Jacksonville converted five of 14 third downs last week, which has been a recurring issue. The Jaguars rank ahead of only the Seahawks in both third down conversion rate (32.1%) and third down conversion rate over expected (-6.8% per RBSDM.com).

• Laviska Shenault Jr. got snaps out of the backfield for the first time this season after lining up at running back in nine different games last year. It’ll be interesting to see if similar usage occurs next week, especially if Robinson misses the game.

• Rudy Ford played over 50% of defensive snaps for the first time this season on Sunday. Rather than utilizing three-safety sets/dime personnel, Jacksonville put Ford in the slot to replace Tre Herndon. Herndon has had a poor season, but Ford didn’t do much better last week as he allowed all five targets in his direction to be caught per PFF. Maybe Jacksonville likes having a bigger body there for even more run support.

• Odell Beckham Jr. feels like a meme at this point, but he’s still good enough to be Jacksonville’s best receiver since 2015. If the Jaguars fail to enter a claim for him it’ll be another example of organizational failure to add to the list.