Titans' DC Shane Bowen on Trevor Lawrence: 'When He Plays Well, They Win'
There is no question the most important position in football is quarterback. In most cases, a strong performance at quarterback leads to wins.
This may not always be the case, but it is with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Trevor Lawrence. In Lawrence's eight games with a passer rating of 100.0 or greater, the Jaguars are 6-2, and their recent four-game winning streak and playoff push coincided perfectly with Lawrence's hot run in recent weeks.
Nobody knows this better than the Tennessee Titans and defensive coordinator Shane Bowen, who just a few weeks ago allowed Lawrence to have arguably the best game of his young NFL career.
"Playing at a really high level right now. I think he's thrown for over 1200 yards these last five games, thrown eight touchdowns these last five games. He had a really good day against us the first time around," Bowen said on Wednesday.
"And again, I think when he when he plays well, they win, right? And that's what they've been doing.
Lawrence threw for a career-high 368 yards on 71.4% passing, throwing three touchdowns and rushing for another as the Jaguars dominated the Titans' defense in a 36-22 win in Week 14. Lawrence was completely dialed in, helping Evan Engram have the best game of his career and making several clutch plays to down the Titans and start the Jaguars' winning streak.
"They're playing as hot as anybody right now. They got dynamic playmakers across the board," Bowen said.
"Outside, the running back, the tight end, obviously. They're all dangerous with the ball in their hands. They all can take it the distance and they're all making plays for him right now and he's doing a great job of finding all of them."
The Jaguars struggled to get their running game going in Nashville a month ago, with Travis Etienne rushing for just 32 yards on seven carries as the Jaguars averaged 2.4 yards per carry and didn't have a run longer than 10 yards.
But the Jaguars didn't need the running game that day. All they needed was Lawrence and his right arm. Such will be the case on Saturday, with the Titans expected to have most of their defensive starters on hand.
“Yeah, it’s kind of the way that game just expressed itself. That doesn’t mean we’re carrying over and saying, ‘We’re not going to be able to run the ball because we struggled in the first game.’ We’re going to do everything we can to move the ball, whatever that looks like," Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor said on Wednesday.
"We certainly are doing our best to put together a plan where we can move the football on the ground, if need be, and then doing what we can to come up with complimentary passes, movements, screens, play action, whatever that may be. Just to put us and our players in the best position. We had some certain schemes we wanted to try against them the first time that probably didn’t shape out the way we hoped they would, so you can scrap those and look for new ideas; go back to the drawing board a little bit to come up with the best plan.”
