Gene Frenette: Hunters or hunted, Jaguars must pounce on prime opportunity in 2023
Finally, the Jacksonville Jaguars have moved out of their longtime residence at One National Irrelevance Drive, upgrading into a place a notch below the NFL elite.
As the franchise opens its 29th training camp Wednesday, the stakes have been raised and expectations should be that the next three years – before the likely start on construction of a renovated EverBank Field – will mark a continuous Super Bowl window being open.
No excuses. No caveats, pass rush or otherwise, about potential roadblocks. Reasonable health permitting for quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the future is now.
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Between the hiring of head coach Doug Pederson and astute maneuvering by general manager Trent Baalke, multiple demons have been exorcised.
Except for an outlier 2017 season and AFC Championship game appearance, Jaguars’ fans have been exposed to a ton of misery and bad choices for 15 years. But last year’s furious post-Thanksgiving rally in the final seven games led to an AFC South title, then erasing a 27-0 deficit to win a playoff game against the Los Angeles Chargers, and a serious uptick of optimism about the future.
Before 2022, this franchise had waded through the bizarre end to David Garrard’s career, the Blaine Gabbert bust, the Justin Blackmon flameout, the Blake Bortles tease, then the subsequent good-riddance drama of Jalen Ramsey.
Even the euphoria over Lawrence’s arrival was tempered by the unimaginable debacle of Urban Meyer being overmatched as an NFL head coach.
In retrospect, Meyer did this franchise an unintentional favor. He was so incompetent, so self-absorbed, so out of his league that owner Shad Khan was forced to fire him before the end of his first season.
Without Meyer foolishly staying in Ohio after that Thursday night loss in 2021 to the Cincinnati Bengals, then the next-day embarrassment of being captured on video dancing with a woman who wasn’t his wife, he would have surely lasted at least one more season.
Thus, there’d been no vacancy for owner Shad Khan to hire a Super Bowl-winning coach as Pederson would now likely be employed somewhere else.
The football gods made it all work beautifully. The Jaguars became a team competently run by Pederson, a former NFL journeyman quarterback who was a perfect fit to unleash Lawrence’s potential once he figured out another new offensive system.
It’s a transformation so massive, the Jaguars are among a cluster of Super Bowl contenders in a loaded AFC that look good enough to challenge the Kansas City Chiefs, while having the benefit of being a solid favorite in an underwhelming AFC South division.
Simultaneously, the Jaguars will be perceived as both the AFC hunter and the AFC South hunted, twin roles that suit them just fine.
“Like I always tell you, we don’t pay too much attention to the media [narrative],” said safety Rayshawn Jenkins on his final day of June OTAs. “We just come out here, work hard and do our job. If we’re being the hunted, then let ‘em hunt. We’re still going to show up every game and give it everything we got. If that goes to being the hunted, we want it.”
Beyond a new Miller Electric Center practice facility that will provide shade for 2,000-plus spectators, the Jaguars and their fan base should be stoked about a future that hasn’t looked this bright since the late 1990s.
Entertaining offense fuels optimism
There are more reasons to believe the Jaguars will fulfill heightened expectations in 2023 than fall short of them, starting with what should become the most prolific offense in franchise history.
It’s not exactly a high bar to clear. The Jaguars scored a franchise-best 417 points in 2017, aided by seven defensive touchdowns. Last year’s total of 404 was third-best, just below the 411 points during their playoff-bound 2007 season.
Since the Jaguars came into the NFL in 1995, only five teams – Washington Commanders, Miami Dolphins, Cleveland Browns, Houston Texans and New York Jets – have less 400-point seasons than Jacksonville, and two of those franchises (Browns, Texans) didn’t even exist for some of those years.
No doubt, the arrival of quarterback Aaron Rodgers will turbo-charge the Jets’ offense. But since Lawrence is only 23, his ascension in the second half of 2022 and having an arsenal of weapons bodes well for the Jaguars to consistently crack that 400-point barrier – maybe even reach 500 – for years to come.
After averaging 23.8 points per game (10th in NFL) last season, the Jaguars are primed for a significant jump. Being in the second year with Pederson’s system and trading for deep-threat receiver Calvin Ridley, those two factors alone give them an excellent shot at being a top-five NFL offense by every meaningful measuring stick.
It’s more than reasonable to expect the Jaguars to average a minimum 27 points a game this year. Why is that significant? Because in the last three years, 19 teams have hit that plateau and only two failed to make the playoffs.
Of the 17 who hit that mark and made the postseason, six went to the Super Bowl and six others won a playoff game. The last three teams to hoist the Lombardi Trophy averaged 29.2 points, 27.1 points and 28.9 points, respectively. In the Jaguars’ last nine games after the bye week in 2022, their scoring average jumped from 21.6 points to 26.5 points, so why shouldn’t that number keep climbing?
The Jaguars’ offense has minimal issues. Other than left tackle Cam Robinson missing the first four games (including a September 17 matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs) due to violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy and rookie Anton Harrison replacing the departed Jawaan Taylor at right tackle, Lawrence has a robust surrounding cast.
Adding Ridley to what was already a solid receiver corps should keep opposing secondaries on edge. With veteran D’Ernest Johnson and third-round draft pick Tank Bigsby joining Travis Etienne in the running back room, this might be the Jaguars’ best stable at that position since Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew were a 1-2 punch for two seasons (2006-07).
Whatever concerns about tight end diminished last week when franchise-tagged Evan Engram signed a three-year contract, preceded in April by drafting Penn State’s Brenton Strange in the second round.
This doesn’t mean the Jaguars will have the NFL’s most potent offense because the AFC is loaded with great quarterbacks. Still, the weaponry is there for Lawrence to make that leap to stardom like 20-somethings Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow and Josh Allen.
With a play-caller like Pederson pulling the strings, the planets are aligned for the Jaguars’ offense to be special.
Jaguars should own AFC South
The truth is Jacksonville’s franchise and many others have struggled to get out of their own way, unable to avoid the pitfalls beyond injuries that can sabotage seasons and lead to constant underachieving.
Whether it’s poor draft decisions, spending big on the wrong free agents, off-the-field drama or a combination of all those things, teams like the Jaguars have found ways to repeatedly flounder and discourage a fan base.
Very little of that exists since Pederson and Baalke became a tag team. In many ways, mostly due to the unrelenting promise of Trevor, this might be the highest-anticipated season in Jaguars’ history.
There was a lot of optimism heading into 2000, but a slew of injuries torpedoed any shot of a repeat Super Bowl run and salary-cap problems later kept them in freefall. In 2018, a seven-game losing streak sent the franchise into a four-year tailspin, quashing all the momentum from an unexpected AFC title game run the previous year.
The leadup to the Jaguars’ 2023 season feels way different, and it’s not just the anticipation of a Lawrence career takeoff making it so.
Looking at the AFC South, every other franchise is either in rebuild mode or in the case of the Tennessee Titans, postponing that inevitable fate maybe one more season. It’s just a matter of time before rookie quarterback Will Levis takes over for Ryan Tannehill, and who knows what shelf life remains in Nashville for Yulee High product and bell-cow running back Derrick Henry?
The Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans will have to deal with the rookie growing pains of quarterbacks Anthony Richardson and C.J. Stroud, respectively.
It’s a perfect setup for the Jaguars, who might have the easiest path to a division title in 2023 and should own the division for at least two or three years.
Even with the likes of Kansas City, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Baltimore and San Francisco on the schedule, a 12-5 season sounds about right and it’s hard to imagine anybody in the division but the Titans coming within three games of that record. Jaguars' fans should expect a minimum one home playoff game for the foreseeable future.
Is that being too generous for a franchise accustomed to letdowns and underachieving? No, not this year.
Sure, there are patches to fill here and there, but the two-deep chart has rarely looked this impressive.
It doesn’t matter whether the Jaguars are viewed as the hunter or the hunted. This season and beyond, it just feels like a Super Bowl window is opening up. It’s time to pounce and eventually make that elusive franchise breakthrough.
Gfrenette@jacksonville.com: (904) 359-4540; Follow him on Twitter @genefrenette
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Gene Frenette: Jaguars must take advantage of Super Bowl window
