Trevor Lawrence ruled out of Sunday's contest against Carolina, will miss first start in NFL

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence will miss the first NFL start of his career after being ruled out for Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers with a right shoulder injury.

Lawrence did not practice this week after suffering the injury in last week’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The injury came on a second half play where Lawrence extended for a first down and was shoved out of bounds as the Jaguars trailed by 30 points.

This is the fourth injury bout Lawrence has had this season, suffering a knee injury, an ankle injury and most recently, a concussion. None of those injuries forced him to miss the following game, playing on limited practice time in each case.

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But with the injury to his throwing shoulder, it’s a bit more of a delicate situation.

“You’re handing the ball off with that right arm, you’re throwing with the right arm. You’re stressing the shoulder a bit more,” head coach Doug Pederson said. “Those are all thing you’ve got to be careful of. It’s really a tolerance thing more than anything else, but you still want to be careful everyday you’re out there.”

Jacksonville is currently the AFC South leaders and the No. 4 seed in the playoffs. With a Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts loss and a win from Jacksonville, they’ll secure the division.

But even if they lose, there’s a scenario where they can make the playoffs as a wildcard team with a win in Week 18.

“I think you’ve got to consider where we are in the season, what we have moving forward,” Pederson said on Thursday. “Obviously, the biggest thing, and we’ve talked about this too, is you don’t want to risk further injury.”

Backup quarterback CJ Beathard will be the starter for Jacksonville as they enter Sunday’s contest. The team also signed veteran quarterback Matt Barkley to their active roster this week and signed quarterback EJ Perry to their practice squad last week.

Lawrence previously had started all 49 regular-season games he has played in, as well as two playoff starts.

This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence out vs. Panthers with shoulder injury