Last season, Jacksonville Jaguars second-year starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence had an absolute breakout season, emerging as a legitimate star for the team and helping lead the Jaguars to a playoff victory over the Los Angeles Chargers. Lawrence improved massively from his rookie season, and in context, those improvements are even more striking.
As Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk points out, the improvement from Trevor Lawrence from his rookie season to his second season was actually historically significant.
“Statistically, there’s a case to be made that Lawrence’s improvement was unlike any other player’s in NFL history,” Smith wrote for Pro Football Talk on Saturday morning. “Via NFL Research, Lawrence’s improvement from a passer rating of 71.9 in 2021 to 95.2 in 2022 is the largest increase in NFL history for any quarterback who threw at least 400 passes in each of his first two seasons.”
His improvement is pretty insane when put into context like that, and the NFL world had plenty to say about it as a result.
How much of this to you attribute to Dougie P over Urban Meyer? Doug is a very good coach. What he did with Nick Foles here in Philly was amazing
— Bill Colarulo (@BillColarulo) July 15, 2023
Good work mate! 💪🏻
— . (@MustBeKp2) July 15, 2023
It’s almost like when you give your QB a better situation they “improve” a ton 😮
What’s next? An article about how Geno Smith took 10 years to become a breakout QB? Jared Goff fell off and revived his career through hard work and dedication?
— jeffmatt (@Une4o) July 15, 2023
The Urban Meyer effect https://t.co/Dy7CPFxrSv
— Matt Verderame (@MattVerderame) July 15, 2023
MVP in year 3
— David Krappenshitz (@dandersena) July 15, 2023
Guy throws four INT‘s in a playoff game and they still think he’s the promised one 😂 🤦♂️
— Sir Sgt. Stedenko 🔺 (@YodaFett_007) July 15, 2023
Obviously, the biggest difference from his rookie season to his second season was a change in head coach as the team transitioned from Urban Meyer to Doug Pederson. It’s not clear how much that impacted Trevor Lawrence, but it’s clear that he’s playing better now either way.
