A Work In Progress: Jaguars' Offense Striving to Play a More Free Brand of Football

The Jaguars' offense is looking to be a bit more loose and free over the next five weeks, hoping to put the last few weeks of mistakes and rough stretches behind them.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are attempting to do many things on offense over the next five weeks. 

Scoring more points is the premium priority after just 48 points over the last four games. Protecting Trevor Lawrence is up there as injuries mount up. And of course creating more explosive plays in the passing and running game is on the list.

“We are still a work in progress. We have a lot of growing to do. As you can see, there’s just too much inconsistencies," offensive coordinator Darrell Bevell said on Thursday. "We’ll play well at times [and] we won’t play well at other times. We clean one thing up [and] we end up having another issue. We did a great job with the penalties, that’s been an issue for us and we only ended up having only one penalty in that game. Just too much stuff that we are being inconsistent with and we have to clean that up.”

But one thing the team is especially making an emphasis as they look to find a semblance of positive offensive momentum over the final month of the season? The ability to simply play more free, putting behind the shackles of disappointment of the last several weeks and simply letting it loose. 

"Yeah, we have actually talked about that as an offense as a whole. I think what happens sometimes is that guys want to do something so bad that if it makes sense, you can almost over try," Bevell said. "When you do that, you can really kind of paralyze yourself a little bit."

The Jaguars' offense isn't one that has played relaxed, loose, free, or with confidence over the past month, but even before the recent four-game losing streak. The Jaguars' offense last looked like a unit that was feeling confident and taking steps forward in Week 6 when it took a pair of 50+ yard field goals to score a season-high 23 points against the Dolphins. Since then, things have taken a turn for the worst for the offense.

Against the Seahawks in Week 8, the Jaguars put up a season-low seven points (which they matched in Week 13). In an upset win over the Bills in Week 9, the Jaguars scored just nine points. On the season as a whole, the Jaguars are No. 31 in points scored per game at just 15.0 -- on pace to be the worst in franchise history. 

"I just talked to the guys about freeing your mind. If you’re prepared and you have done a great job in your preparation, then you should allow your preparation to take over. If you have done that and you are prepared, then when you go out on the field you are kind of ahead of the game as you are doing whatever your job is that you’re doing and it will feel like second nature to you," Bevell said. 

"You won’t have to think, oh am I supposed to do this or am I supposed to do that? That’s what we are talking about when we say playing more free.”

The largest benefactor of an offense that plays more free of itself would be rookie quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick who has seen middling results in terms of production but significant results in terms of lessons learned. While the points and wins haven't been there for Lawrence and the Jaguars, it doesn't mean Lawrence's mindset and approach haven't taken a step forward. And over the next five weeks, the hope is that approach can help Lawrence find some success to build onto moving forward.

"Just like I always say, keep getting better. I really just want to go play free, go be me and make plays, just having a great week of practice, trusting the game plan, and then when game day comes, letting it rip," Lawrence said on Wednesday. 

"As this season’s gone on obviously, there’s been, like we’ve said, ups and downs and a lot of stuff going on and that’s the one thing I need to be consistent on is just go out there and play and just be myself. That’s something I want to do a better job of, don’t play in a box, just go play free. That’s something I really want to do especially finishing out this season, build on something, like you said, go stack some wins and feel good about the year. Obviously, it didn’t go exactly as planned, but still, we can finish well and have something to build on for next year.”

Lawrence's development moving forward is the key storyline for a Jaguars franchise that is sitting at 2-10 just a year after earning the draft's top pick for the first time. The quick fix many hoped would occur after drafting Lawrence hasn't taken place, but the rookie quarterback has been able to navigate the waters of life as an NFL rookie quarterback in part due to the struggles the Jaguars have faced. 

"Especially as a young player, you just want to do as much as you can. You just want to win and that’s where I’m at, so sometimes you try to do too much," Lawrence said."I feel like I’ve done a good job of taking care of the ball, but I think you saw that early on, trying to do too much, trying to force things, and then [I] got better as the season’s gone on. 

"But I think now it’s just you can’t worry about every little thing, you just have to go play, trust the guys around you to go make plays and I think that’s half the battle. Then once you have that trust, you can just go do it. That’s where we’re building towards, and I thought we had a great day today. That’s been the message, especially after this past game is just trust our preparation and go out there and play with confidence, don’t hesitate. That’s the plan.”

The plan will be put into motion against the Tennessee Titans this weekend. Whether it helps bring more production and simply more points remains to be seen, but it is the Jaguars latest hope for