The New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars have played some memorable games through the years, and Sunday’s meeting has a chance to be another highly-competitive affair. The two Week 3 adversaries are led by two of the most talented young quarterbacks in football, after all, and have talent in all three phases of the game.
In order to find out more about the Patriots’ opponent, we spoke with Gus Logue of Pats Pulpit’s sister site Big Cat Country, the SB Nation community for all things Jaguars.
How has Trevor Lawrence grown since Liam Coen took over in Jacksonville? What’s it been like navigating the ups and downs of a young quarterback?
Long story short, Lawrence has his swagger back.
During his 52-2 high school career and 34-2 college career, Lawrence was a flamethrower. He had the arm and the receivers to make any throw he felt like. But when he arrived in Jacksonville as the first overall pick in 2021, he was being coached by Urban Meyer and throwing passes to Laquon Treadwell and Tavon Austin.
Lawrence led the league in interceptions as a rookie, but over time, his aggressiveness waned. The Jaguars were slow to surround him with talent. Whenever he tried to put the Superman cape on to save the day, it would often result in an ugly turnover because of a blown block or a wrong route or a predictable playcall. Lawrence focused on becoming more consistentdown to down.
Over the first few years of his career, Lawrence picked up some bad traits. With an untrustworthy offensive line and consecutive season-ending injuries, his pocket presence declined. He subconsciously felt sped up in the pocket, which led to poor post-snap processing. And his accuracy has never quite been elite.
Through the first half of last season, Lawrence still had incredible flashes of the player he could be, yet the product remained far from consistent. Then came the Week 10 loss in Houston. Liam Coen tweaked his playbook to streamline things while publicly telling his quarterback to “let it rip.” Since then, Lawrence has played like a superhero.
I’m not certain about the rest of the roster, but Trevor Lawrence is Super Bowl-ready.
What’s behind Bhayshul Tuten’s emergence as one of the league’s most explosive backs through to games?
Player development! This is not the same guy we saw last season.
As a rookie, Tuten was better than expected at rushing between the tackles, albeit mostly because of his bowling ball frame and strong contact balance. He had a long way to go in terms of hitting correct rushing lanes and manipulating second-level defenders. Until now, I guess!
There are still plenty of running backs with better vision than Tuten, but it his feel for the game clearly improved this offseason. Now that he’s solid in that area, and still a freakish athlete, he’s arguably the most explosive skill player in Jacksonville. A true breakout season from Tuten would be huge for this offense.
Do you think Christian Gonzalez should shadow Brian Thomas Jr. or Parker Washington? How do you like Washington’s matchup if he spends most snaps against Marcus Jones?
I expect Gonzalez to be deployed like Pat Surtain II was last week against Jacksonville. The Broncos used their All-Pro cornerback to take away the entire weak side of the field in zone coverage (mainly against 3×1 receiver formations) so that other defenders could flood the opposite side of the field.
New England plays more man coverage than Denver, though, so perhaps the Patriots will break out the old Bill Belichick double-team game plan by assigning Gonzalez to Washington and Carlton Davis III/safety help to Thomas Jr.
I would definitely favor Washington in a matchup against Marcus Jones, but if Washington draws shadow coverage from Gonzalez or Davis, I’d still expect the Jaguars to attack Jones. The Patriots’ secondary is stronger on the perimeter, and last week, Trevor Lawrence completed 8 of 9 passes over the middle of the field compared to 9 of 19 passes outside the hashes. Expect plenty of in-breaking route concepts from the Jaguars on Sunday.
The Jaguars have a low pass rush win rate, but a high pressure rate and lots of unblocked pressures. What’s behind that production?
Defensive coordinator Anthony Campanile, who I fully expect to become an NFL head coach in the next year to two. He gets the absolute most out of his defense by coaching them hard and putting them in positions to succeed. After coaching for a few seasons in Miami, Campanile deploys a scheme that sits between Vic Fangio’s structure and Brian Flores’ chaos. He has the goods as a leader and a play caller.
With the No. 1 run defense from a season ago, Campanile’s formula is to shut down the run on early downs to force offenses into 3rd downs. That’s when he unleashes creative blitz packages that help create unblocked pressures and high pressure rates.
But the Jaguars’ pass rush win rate is low because their four-man pass rush stinks. It has for a few seasons now. Franchise sack leader Josh Hines-Allen is a great edge defender, and Travon Walker has become the Robin to his Batman, but there’s nobody else on the roster who can consistently affect the quarterback without schematic help.
Last week was just the seventh game of Hines-Allen’s 112-game NFL career that he failed to record a pressure. Bo Nix was barely touched. The Jags couldn’t get home. I’ll be interested to see how aggressive Campanile is with his blitzes this week against one of the league’s best dual-threat quarterbacks in Drake Maye.
How does the Jaguars’ cornerback rotation work, and where does Travis Hunter fit? Is there a certain grouping where the Patriots’ receivers could have an advantage?
Hunter has had plenty of encouraging reps at cornerback, but he’s clearly still getting acclimated to the position. His advantage of being the secondary’s top athlete is offset by his lack of on-field confidence. He doesn’t yet have the experience to play free, without thinking too hard.
Last year’s second overall pick ought to earn full-time snaps at cornerback sooner rather than later. Until then, the Jaguars seem comfortable utilizing a committee at the position. From my perspective, it isn’t a lack of confidence in Hunter (58% snap rate on defense through Week 2) so much as a vote of confidence in the rest of the room. Boundary corner Montaric Brown (77%) was re-signed in the offseason, slot corner Jourdan Lewis (53%) is a veteran leader, and inside/outside corner Jarrian Jones (67%) definitely deserves the opportunities he’s been seeing.
DeMario Douglas should find success out of the slot against the aging Lewis. At this stage of his career, Hunter is probably liable to a double move, or some sort of play concept that overloads his side of the field with routes. And Brown has allowed a 30+ yard catch in both games this season.
Jaguars fans should be relieved that A.J. Brown is out for Sunday’s matchup. They do not have a dude who can match up against top wideouts right now.
