December 20, 2020. Collectively holed up in the safety of their homes, New York Jets fans writhed in agony as they watched their team blow the perfect season.
The perfect tanking effort, that is. On that fateful day in an empty SoFi Stadium, the 0-13 Jets somehow pulled out a 23-20 win over the 9-4 Los Angeles Rams as 17.5-point underdogs, which converted possession of the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Jets were finally going to do it. They were going all the way in – no half-measures. No bridge quarterback. No Day 3 dice roll. No second-round swing for the fences. No trading up for the second-best quarterback in the class. None of it. They were going to get Trevor freakin’ Lawrence, the consensus No. 1 overall prospect (regardless of position) in the 2021 draft class and a “generational” quarterback prospect who was guaranteed to alter the fortunes of whatever franchise was lucky enough to secure his golden locks.
And, of course, the Jets could not even get that right. They let Lawrence slip through their fingers and tumble 937 miles down I-95 to the northeastern corner of Florida. It was an egregious bungling that would set the franchise back decades.
Or was it?
53 Trevor Lawrence starts later, this is what the Jets have missed out on:
- 20-33 record as a starter
- 40 interceptions (3rd-most in NFL)
- 63.2% completion rate (26th of 33 QBs with 700+ pass attempts since 2021, between Russell Wilson and Davis Mills)
- 84.5 passer rating (29th of 33, ahead of only Justin Fields, Davis Mills, Kenny Pickett, and Zach Wilson)
- 6.7 yards per attempt (29th of 33, ahead of only Davis Mills, Daniel Jones, Zach Wilson, and Kenny Pickett)
- 3.3% passing TD rate (30th of 33, ahead of only Daniel Jones, Zach Wilson, and Kenny Pickett)
- 0.04 EPA per play (22nd of 33)
On Monday night, Lawrence and the Jaguars suffered an utterly embarrassing 47-10 defeat at the hands of the Buffalo Bills, dropping Jacksonville to 0-3 and all but squashing their playoff hopes from a historical odds perspective (only six teams since 1979 have made it after starting 0-3). Barring a miracle, Lawrence will conclude his fourth season with one playoff appearance under his belt.
By now, the Jaguars should have had at least one championship, and Lawrence should be in the MVP conversation. At least, that’s what was promised. Alas, neither of those things are true. Boasting the second-worst point differential in the NFL this season (-45, just one point better than the comical Carolina Panthers), Jacksonville currently appears just as far away from contention as they did when the Jets handed Lawrence to them on December 20, 2020.
Lawrence is one of the league’s worst-performing quarterbacks right now. He is second-worst in completion percentage at 52.8%, ahead of only Anthony Richardson. His 75.1 passer rating is sixth-worst, ahead of Deshaun Watson, two rookies, Richardson, and Bryce Young. He joins Young, Jacoby Brissett, and Justin Fields as the only quarterbacks averaging under 200 passing yards per game and under 1 touchdown pass per game.
Excuses galore have been made for Lawrence. One of the common arguments you will see on NFL Twitter goes something like, “The film shows a good quarterback even if the numbers don’t.” Some point to a lackluster receiving core, poor coaching, or poor pass protection as reasons that his production isn’t matching the eye test.
Those excuses were understandable for a while. But after throwing 1,839 career passes (fourth-most in the NFL since he entered the league)… maybe this is just who he is.
Lawrence could turn his 2024 season around. He could even turn his career around and become an above-average quarterback. It would be silly to write off a 24-year-old with Lawrence’s talent level, especially considering the turnarounds we’ve seen from quarterbacks in their late 20s throughout the past few seasons.
While an upward swing could be in Lawrence’s future, one thing appears near-certain: Lawrence will never be the franchise-altering talent he was billed as.
You know who does have a franchise-altering talent at quarterback?
The team who defeated the Los Angeles Rams on December 20, 2020.
Aaron Rodgers is a top-five MVP candidate at multiple sportsbooks. He ranks fourth in EPA per play among quarterbacks (0.25), is one of only two starters who has yet to throw a turnover-worthy pass, and has the Jets ranked first in third-down conversion rate (56.8%) and third in red-zone touchdown rate (75%).
The path to get here was not what the Jets scripted. But they’re here. When the Jets walked into SoFi Stadium that day, fans hoped they were witnessing the very beginning of a path that would lead to the team competing for a championship with a franchise quarterback. Four years later, that is what they are doing. The Jacksonville Jaguars are not.
Zach Wilson was a colossal bust and is a far worse quarterback than Trevor Lawrence. Those things cannot be disputed. Wilson was so anemic that the Jets benched him before the conclusion of his second season for a guy who is currently on the Bills’ practice squad. Wilson is currently the Broncos’ third-string quarterback.
Yet, as we sit here today… Wilson was arguably a more beneficial draft selection for New York than Lawrence was for Jacksonville.
The worst place to be in the NFL is in the middle. You want to either be competing for a title or in the process of building a team that can compete for one. If your team is too bad to seriously compete for a title but too good to tank for blue-chip pieces (specifically at quarterback), you’re in NFL purgatory.
The Jaguars are in NFL purgatory. And it’s because of their quarterback.
Your status as an NFL franchise tends to correlate directly with your status at the quarterback position. Lawrence is one of those quarterbacks who has firmly placed himself in the NFL’s dreaded middle class. The guy is undoubtedly starter-worthy, but he has shown nothing remotely close to championship-caliber play.
Because of Lawrence’s “good enough” play, Jacksonville fans are stuck watching him barely throw 20 touchdowns per season for a long, long time. He just inked a five-year, $275 million contract with $200 million guaranteed.
For what?
That’s the state of the NFL. If you’re a quarterback who is competent enough to be a starter, you get a gargantuan contract (hello, Daniel Jones).
Meanwhile, when you draft a guy like Zach Wilson, who proves himself to be so bad that he cannot be started under any circumstances, you get a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card as an organization.
Wilson’s awfulness made it an easy decision for the Jets to move on from him. They were able to turn the page quickly and focus on making an aggressive pursuit for a quarterback who could maximize their championship-ready roster, which led them to Aaron Rodgers.
In addition, Wilson’s abominable play kept the Jets high in the draft even though they were already loaded with talent across the rest of the roster. This allowed them to overload an already-talented roster with even more high draft picks. A team as talented as the Jets were in 2022 had no business adding two more top-15 picks over the next two years, but Wilson allowed them to do it. Now, they sit here in 2024 with an absurdly stacked roster.
Here’s the bottom line. If you are going to draft a quarterback in the first round, there are two ideal results: hitting a home run or striking out. Hitting a single with a first-round quarterback is a death sentence in this league.
If a guy clearly isn’t a star but shows just enough flashes of promise, teams will hold onto him for dear life, wasting years that could have been spent looking for a better solution. The Jaguars are stuck in this spot with Lawrence. It is objectively a much better outcome to draft a quarterback who is so terrible that he gives the team an obvious escape route, rather than luring them into giving him more time (and money) to try and tap into the faux potential he occasionally shows.
Yes, Lawrence is 24 and could be the Jaguars’ quarterback for the next decade, while Rodgers is 40 and could retire after this season.
So what?
In this league, winning championships is everything. Rodgers will give the Jets a chance to win the Super Bowl this year. Lawrence has yet to give the Jaguars a legitimate shot at a championship, and it does not appear he will do so anytime soon. If you’re a Jets fan, you sign up for one year of Rodgers and the unknowns that come post-2024 over Lawrence’s foreseeable future on his contract, and you do not think twice about it.
Perhaps Braden Mann making the tackle of his life in Inglewood wasn’t so devastating after all.
