Jaguars' Doug Pederson suggests Trevor Lawrence is indeed not seeing ghosts
The Jacksonville Jaguars are having as many issues on offense as any team in the league right now. But that is the bad news. The good news is that they are still 6-3, with one of the best records in the AFC and leading the AFC South. There is still time to at least get […]
The Jacksonville Jaguars are having as many issues on offense as any team in the league right now. But that is the bad news. The good news is that they are still 6-3, with one of the best records in the AFC and leading the AFC South. There is still time to at least get some of that fixed.
The defense isn't an elite unit by any means, but they are leading this team. The thing is, coming into this season, the offense was supposed to be the identity of this team. The identity of this team has been them barely getting by with an average or below-average offense.
One of the issues on the offensive side of the ball that certainly hasn't helped is the offensive line, so much so that one reporter asked if quarterback Trevor Lawrence was seeing "fake pressure" out there. Of course, head coach Doug Pederson responded with, "Are you saying he's seeing ghosts?" which just made everyone crack up a bit.
The idea is that Trevor Lawrence's offensive line has been bad and that it's so bad that he is maybe biting too much on "fake pressure," which is just causing him to play all over the place.
His actual answer explained it a bit more.
"We're seeing better defenses, we're seeing better fronts, got another one this week with a really good front, and they can get after a passer," Pederson said Wednesday. "Trevor's got to understand that, number one, whether that means getting through his progressions a little bit faster, we have to do a better job upfront.
"It's a collective effort; I do think sometimes, when you get hit the number of times as a quarterback, it can affect your eyes. Your eyes can drop and focus on the rush to touch. The one thing about Trevor that he's really good at is continuing to keep his eyes down the field. We've got to continue to coach him and help him and make sure he feels as comfortable as possible."
If we are honest, the offensive line hasn't been great. Lawrence has been sacked 24 times, which isn't the best or the worst, but it's certainly not great. The one stat that really shows how bad the offensive line is is average pocket time. According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Lawrence has the worst pocket time in the league at 2.4 seconds.
We all see the bad offensive line has led to those issues with Lawrence. And they have also led to the turnovers we continue to see. And those turnovers, well, let's just say that 10 of the 17 turnovers have come in in opponent field goal range or better. Six of them have been in the red zone. There are a ton of issues, and Lawrence's "seeing fake pressure" or "ghosts" all come back to the offensive line.
Jaguars’ offensive problems vs. 49ers start with the offensive line
The Jaguars were blown out by the 49ers.
