The Jaguars’ front office surely did not envision hearing Trevor Lawrence semi-quoting “The Waterboy” just two weeks into his five-year, $275 million contract extension.
“We suck right now,” Lawrence said of Jacksonville’s offense on Sunday after falling to 0-2 in an 18-13 home loss to the Browns. “I’m pretty shocked. We had a great offseason, great training camp and we got to figure it out. We know we got a good group, we got good players and we can be a really good offense, but clearly we’re not. Everybody’s got to take accountability, look in the mirror and fix it. I got to play better, I’m the leader of this offense, it’s on me. Wideouts gotta play better, line’s gotta play better, running backs gotta play better, gotta coach better. It’s everybody, honestly.
“We’re standing around, we’ve got to take charge. We’re standing around waiting on somebody to make a play. Defense is playing their ass off the last two weeks. If a team doesn’t score more than 20 points on us, we should win every week.”
The Jaguars are in the early running for the NFL’s biggest disappointments after scoring just 30 points across their first two games and 13 in their last six quarters.
An offense with a $275 million quarterback and former No. 1 pick should not be this pedestrian, yet the Jaguars have now lost two games when they held an opponent to 20 points or less.
Jacksonville squandered a 10-point halftime lead in its 20-17 loss to the Dolphins in Week 1 after failing to score in the second half.
On Sunday, the Jaguars fell behind 16-3 in the third quarter before a late rally fell short.
Lawrence had a rough day at the office, completing just 14 of 30 passes for 220 yards with zero touchdowns, albeit against a strong defense.
He took a killer safety in the fourth quarter with the Jaguars trailing 16-13, which he admitted “basically ends the game.”
Lawrence has thrown one touchdown pass and tallied just 382 passing yards across two starts while leading an offense that ranks 21st in yards per game.
The former Clemson star believes self-inflicted woes are slowing the offense, noting red-zone struggles and poor communication.
“Fortunately, or unfortunately it’s what pisses you off after the game, a lot of it we control. We control it but we’re not doing it right. Until we do it right, it’s a different story. We know the things we’ve got to work on and we’ve got to find a rhythm as an offense. Too many good players to perform like that, really the last two weeks,” Lawrence said.
The Jaguars now face a daunting task of trying to fix an offense with two upcoming matchups against two undefeated squads in the Bills and Texans in Weeks 3 and 4, respectively.
Jacksonville is a six-point underdog at Draft Kings for the “Monday Night Football” matchup in Buffalo.
“We can’t hit the panic button, but we’ve got to have some real conversations,” he said. “We’ve got too good of a team to come out here and perform two weeks in a row like this. These games are precious and you don’t get them back and we’re 0-2 to start the year and it’s not going to get any easier. We’ve got a lot of good teams in our schedule, one coming up this week. We’d better fix it quick.”