All the pieces matter for the Jaguars — especially Doug Pederson and Trevor Lawrence
When the national media buys into the Jacksonville Jaguars, something impresses them.
NBC's Peter King has picked them to be the No. 1 AFC seed in the playoffs. Pete Prisco of CBSsports.com, who covered the Jaguars for the Times-Union from their inception to 2000, has predicted a Jaguars-San Franciso Super Bowl, as has Michael Rosenberg of Sports Illustrated.
Reversing course: Jaguars, Doug Pederson look to 'right the ship' on the road against Colts this week
Pretty lofty, for a team that went 9-8 last season (after a 2-6 start) and made the playoffs thanks to an improbable scoop-and-score fumble recovery by Josh Allen. They won one playoff game with a historic comeback against the Los Angeles Chargers, rallying from 27-0 down to win 31-30, and then fell to the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs 27-20 — who come calling at EverBank Stadium next week.
What's next?
That 17-part question begins on Sunday at 1 p.m. when the Jaguars play the Indianapolis Colts at Lucas Oil Stadium (FOX).
Jaguars have the coach/QB combo
So why all the love, from a national media contingent that has often dismissed the Jaguars' chances during the preseason and seems to spend more time speculating that they'll be the London Jaguars?
Maybe it's the transformation of quarterback Trevor Lawrence to a spot among the NFL's elite.
Maybe it's the steady hand at the wheel belonging to coach Doug Pederson — who deserves due credit for helping Lawrence shake off the disaster that was his rookie season under Urban Meyer, developing him and surrounding him with playmakers.
Lawrence increased his completion percentage by 6.7 points, his passer rating by 23.3 points, his passing yardage by 472 yards (from 3,641 yards to 4,113). He more than doubled his TD passes (25-12) and cut his interceptions by more than half (17-8).
The defense has some question marks, mainly to do with the pass rush. The Jags took a gamble on special teams by signing veteran Brandon McManus, a big guy with a huge leg, and shipping Riley Patterson, who made 22 of his last 23 kicks as a Jaguar, back to Detroit.
But if NFL history shows a clear pattern, it's that most Super Bowl teams have the right coach and the right quarterback. Everything else takes care of itself.
Bill Belichick and Tom Brady at New England. Mike Tomlin and Ben Rothlisberger at Pittsburgh. Mike Shanahan and John Elway at Denver. Mike Holmgren and Brett Favre at Green Bay. Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning at the New York Giants ... all the way back to Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw at Pittsburgh, Bill Walsh and Joe Montana at San Francisco, Don Shula and Bob Griese at Miami and the original devastating coach/quarterback combination, Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr.
It's for this reason that predictions of the Jaguars making the Super Bowl aren't far-fetched.
But Pederson said it's on him and the players to not get ahead of themselves.
“I think that’s more for you guys to talk about it," he told the media during a news conference on Wednesday at the Miller Electric Center. "We stay focused on the moment, we stay focused on ourselves, we prepare like we do every single week and every single day. We can’t worry about what’s going on outside of the building. We just got to prepare today.”
Fast tracks to the Super Bowl
History shows that teams can go from dismal to contenders in a short amount of time, given a commitment by ownership, coaches and players.
The NFL is structured to promote worst-to-first in a short amount of time with the draft and free agency.
That doesn't always pan out. In the Super Bowl era, only six overall No. 1 draft picks have started and won in a Super Bowl with the team that drafted them.
Given that, here's some history lessons on why Jaguars fans can feel optimistic:
Ten teams have made the Super Bowl a year after posting .500 records, with the most recent the 2015 Atlanta Falcons. Those teams are 4-6 in the Super Bowl and that record would have been reversed had the Falcons protected a 28-3 lead against New England and the Titans would have won had Kevin Dyson gotten 18 inches closer to the goal line on the final play of the game.
In the last 20 years, eight teams have made the Super Bowl after a losing record one or two years before the season in which they won a conference championship. That includes Peterson's 2017 Eagles (who were 7-9 in 2016, his first season as the coach).
And in the last three seasons, a team has reached the Super Bowl after dismal records at least two years before reaching the big game. The 2021 Cincinnati Bengals were 4-11-1 in 2020 and 2-14 in 2019; the 2022 Eagles were 4-11-1 in 2020; and the 2020 Tampa Bay Bucs were 5-11, 5-11 and 7-9 the previous three seasons.
Quarterbacks make the difference
Getting the right coach is one thing but in all of those cases, the teams got the right quarterback.
Cincinnati's 2-14 record in 2019 gave them the first overall pick and they jumped on Heisman Trophy winner and national championship quarterback Joe Burrow. He's clearly one of the elites in the league.
Pederson was shown the door when Philadelphia won only four games in 2020 but Nick Sirianni has proven up the task, more than doubling the win total in 2021 and getting to the Super Bowl last season, where the Eagles nearly took the game to overtime before losing 38-35.
Again, the right quarterback was the difference with multi-talented Jalen Hurts (6,845 yards, 38 TD passes and 23 touchdowns on the ground in his last two seasons).
And Tampa Bay? All they did was move heaven and earth to get the greatest winner in NFL history, Tom Brady, who led the Bucs to their second Super Bowl title and his seventh.
The Jaguars were 1-15 in 2020, which gave them the No. 1 overall pick. They jumped at taking Lawrence. The Jags weren't much better the following year, going 3-14 with Meyer botching his first and likely only chance to coach in the NFL.
Lawrence improved by leaps and bounds last year under Pederson.
Can it be even better in 2023?
No carry-overs
Given Pederson's one-game-at-a-time mantra, this still has to be a confident team, right?
“I think it’s having confidence a little bit from past success, but also preparation and knowing our system and feeling more comfortable in what we’re doing," Lawrence said on Wednesday. "Just being in the system, you know more, you can react faster, you can play faster, you communicate better with the guys around you. I think that gives you confidence too, just the way we finished the year. But it’s a new season and that doesn’t carry over."
The Jaguars don't have to go back far in their team history to prove Lawrence's point. When they won the AFC South and were 10 minutes away from the Super Bowl in 2017, they began 2018 with victories over the Giants and Patriots. But they fell flat after that and finished 5-11.
Nothing's guaranteed. To quote the classic TV crime series "The Wire," all the pieces matter.
But the Jags have the two most important pieces in Pederson and Lawrence.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars coach Doug Pederson, QB Trevor Lawrence are the key pieces
