Just one week after injury, Trevor Lawrence struggles in loss to Browns

When Trevor Lawrence hit the turf Monday with what turned out to be a high-ankle sprain, the air went out of Jacksonville’s playoff hopes.

But Lawrence surprised pretty much everyone outside of the Jags’ inner circle by returning to start just six days later … and proceeded to help author one of the uglier games of the season. The Jaguars lost to the Browns, 31-27, in a seven-turnover mess of a game that helped Cleveland move closer to securing a playoff spot and raised questions about Lawrence's health, if not his determination.

Lawrence pinballed between brilliance and disaster, throwing for two touchdowns and looking remarkably spry for someone who hobbled off the field just one week ago. He finished with 257 yards passing on 28 of 50 completions, figures that could and should have been so much higher had Lawrence fired with more accuracy or his receivers held on with more dexterity.

Jacksonville's primary problem was an utter inability to keep possession of the ball, turning it over four times in all (Cleveland did its part, turning the ball over three times itself). Over the course of the game, Lawrence threw an interception to Martin Emerson Jr. …

… and then another INT to Emerson …

… and then a third INT, this time to Greg Newsome II:

And yet, even with all that chaos, Lawrence got the ball back in his hands with 4:20 remaining and down a touchdown. He found Evan Engram for a first down with his first pass, then misfired on two more on his next set of downs. On third-and-10, Lawrence scrambled on that bad ankle but wasn’t able to reach the line to gain, and then couldn’t find Zay Jones on the last-ditch fourth-and-3.

The Browns flipped that fourth-down stop into a field goal. Lawrence got the ball back with just over two minutes remaining, but no timeouts in hand and a 10-point deficit. A handy goal-line defensive pass interference call set up a Lawrence touchdown pass to Engram, but Myles Garrett sacked Lawrence on the two-point attempt to keep the Browns' lead at four points. The Browns recovered the onside kick attempt to clinch the victory.

While the two teams entered the day positioned adjacent to one another in the playoffs, this wasn’t a direct battle for playoff position. Houston's surprise loss to the Jets helped the Jaguars maintain a one-game lead in the AFC South, while Pittsburgh and Indianapolis losses this week gave Cleveland a game's worth of breathing room in the AFC wild-card hunt.

In fact, because the Jaguars are still seeded fourth and Cleveland fifth, this might have been a wild-card weekend preview. If so, both sides have to hope that the rematch is a lot cleaner than this. And Jacksonville has to hope that a more healthy Lawrence can deliver a more effective performance.