Trevor Lawrence, Jakobi Meyers, & Cutting It Loose

Following a 36-29 loss to the Houston Texans in Week 10, Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen implored Trevor Lawrence to “cut it loose.” In that game, Lawrence went 13-of-23 for 158 yards. While there were three touchdown passes that flashed some of the high-level ability Lawrence has shown throughout his career, he averaged -0.19 EPA per play and took five sacks.

The Houston defense has made just about every quarterback struggle this season — the average EPA per play against the Texans is -0.12 with a 37.7% success rate — but Lawrence’s struggles were not limited to just facing the devastating Houston defense. Through Week 10, Lawrence ranked 28th among quarterbacks in EPA per play and 24th in success rate, according to TruMedia.

Since then? He’s first in success rate and fourth in EPA per play. The looseness and confidence which Lawrence has demonstrated over the past few weeks coincide with some personnel and structural changes in the offense. Putting all of that together makes it fair to wonder if this is truly a turning point for the former first overall pick. Is this stretch sustainable?

This recent stretch of games is the idealized version of what the Coen offense was expected to be when he was hired by the Jaguars. Early in the season, the mesh between the Jaguars’ offensive personnel, Coen’s offense, and the quarterback was disjointed at best. Brian Thomas Jr. looked uncomfortable as the middle of the field player, both in how he moved and the number of drops committed. The Jaguars were also trying to find out the best offensive deployment for Travis Hunter, who spent the early part of the season as a part-time gadget player before getting into a bigger role just before he was lost for the season.

Looking for answers in the receiver room, the Jaguars made a deal for Jakobi Meyers at the trade deadline. Meyers made his Jacksonville debut in that Week 10 game against Houston, but only ran 16 routes. He was fully integtaed into the offense for the Week 11 game, not so coincidentally when Lawrence’s hot streak started.

Meyers has been the team’s leading receiver since Week 11 with a 22.9% target share. After spending 60% of his time in the slot with the Raiders during the first half of the season, Meyers has surprisingly lined up out wide on 70% of his snaps for the Jaguars, but he’s become that middle of the field target that was missing earlier in the season. Meyers has run in-breaking routes 18.8% of the time with the Jaguars.

We can see the difference in where Lawrence has thrown the ball this year before and after Meyers.

That intermediate middle of the field remains the most valuable place to target and it’s an area Coen excelled at opening for Baker Mayfield in Tampa Bay. Last season, Mayfield had the most passes in the league that traveled 11-19 air yards between the numbers. Lawrence was 30th. 

The Jaguars have used Meyers on a dig as the first read to find a hole in the zone, as was the case on this third-and-12 against the Chargers.

The dig can also be used as a later progression, as Lawrence came back to it on this second-and-10 later in the same Chargers game. 

Since coming to the Jaguars, Meyers has run more routes against man coverage. With the Raiders this year, 26.7% of his routes came against man. That has jumped to 34.4% with the Jaguars. More importantly, he’s been targeted on 30.4% of his routes against man in Jacksonville, compared to just 18.8% in Las Vegas. 

Jacksonville has weaponized the offense against man coverage. Lawrence has averaged 0.29 EPA per play against man over the past five games after averaging 0.03 in his first nine. 

This past week against the Jets, Jacksonville motioned Meyers inside. At the snap, Meyers started his route to the outside, forcing the defender to go over a vertical route from tight end Brenton Strange. With plenty of space to work with, Meyers broke back inside.

If more proof is needed to how important Meyers has become to this offense, the Jaguars just signed him to a three-year extension worth $60 million and $40 million guaranteed — getting a deal done before he became a free agent.

Now that the Jaguars have a player comfortable in that space, Lawrence has found more success and efficiency there while the offense has also opened up elsewhere. Brian Thomas Jr. has been more effective now that he can stay outside and base his routes of a vertical stem.

Thomas has only played in the past three games, missing Weeks 11 and 12, but the change in play style is already clear. His in-breaking routes have dropped from 10.9% to 3.4%. If he’s going to cross the field, it’s on a deeper crossing route, which he’s running 16.1% of the time as opposed to 8.8% earlier. But his targets have come deeper down the field and have barely come between the numbers.

Working with acceleration and deep ball-tracking have gotten Thomas back into a groove. He has a 20.7-yard average depth of target over the past three games, up nearly eight yards from his early season stint, while he’s catching a higher percentage of his targets. 

Early in the season, the Jaguars tried to rely on Lawrence’s quick release and Coen’s screen game. As the offensive coordinator of the Buccaneers, Coen’s screens were some of the best designed plays in the league. But those didn’t have the same juice with the Jaguars. Over the first 10 weeks of the season, Lawrence averaged nearly four screens per game but averaged -0.16 EPA per play with a 36% success rate. Over the past five weeks, he’s thrown just one per game.

Where Lawerence has thrown has been one of the biggest differences between this late season stretch and the earlier games. 

One of the benefits has been the elimination of empty compilations. While some of those screens and shorter passes would be completions, they wouldn’t add much value to the offense. Through Week 10, 27.7% of Lawrence’s completions failed to produce positive EPA. That was the 16th-highest rate in the league. Over the past five weeks, that rate has dropped to 7.1%, which is the lowest rate in the league by more than half. Marcus Mariota is second at 15%. 

Lawrence has essentially replaced throws at or behind the line of scrimmage for deep passes and hasn’t sacrificed his completion rate. Lawrence has completed 56.5% of his deep passes over the past five weeks and leads the NFL in passing yards on throws of 20 or more air yards from Weeks 11-15. While completing over 50% of deep passes isn’t going to be sustainable, the confidence in which Lawrence is throwing them is a positive future indicator.

The bad Lawrence offenses of the past were often so static and condensed. We’re seeing the opposite of that now. The movement is purposeful. There are easy answers in the middle of the field and Lawrence has the confidence to cut it loose when those opportunities arise.

Jacksonville plays Denver on Sunday and then finishes with Indianapolis and Tennessee. This is a team nearly guaranteed to make the playoffs with a 50.2% chance to win the division, according to DVOA playoff odds. In a season when the mainstays at the top of the AFC have fallen away, the Jags are hitting a stride. 

It took about a half season for everything to come together, but it appears that things have clicked for this offense. Lawrence is on the best stretch of his career in a way that could continue given his surroundings. That might be the first time that could be said for Lawrence in his career. The tools have always been there — now the Jaguars can see how far they can go.