3 Biggest Offseason Questions for the Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jaguars selected Trevor Lawrence out of Clemson with the first overall pick in the 2021 draft, and it's been a bumpy ride for the team's franchise quarterback. A rookie season with Urban Meyer as head coach was a wash, but Lawrence came back with authority under Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Press Taylor in 2022. 2023 was a bit of a backslide, 2024 saw Lawrence miss seven games with shoulder and concussion issues, and in 2025 under Coen (who also runs the offense), Lawrence had perhaps his best season to date, completing 359 of 590 passes for 4,214 yards, 32 touchdowns, 14 interceptions, and a passer rating of 90.7.

Good stuff there, but where does Lawrence rank among the best of the best at his position? In 2025, he ranked 14th in EPA per dropback, 12th in DYAR, 16th in DVOA, and 20th in passer rating. Through multiple coaches and multiple systems, Lawrence has often been good, but good enough to win a championship? That's another question without a definitive answer.

Coen, one of the most astute offensive designers in football, has ideas for his quarterback that could multiply the effects of his efforts. He outlined that in late May when asked whether he has Lawrence deeper into the playbook in Year 2.

“I think it's not as much 'more' as it is refined," Coen said. "Something that we did at the bye — we [were] trying to be very intentional about 'Man, what are the areas in which he's really doing at a high level that we can continue to lean into for the rest of this season? What were those things that are on the shelf for the end of the season that we need to attack right now?'

"One of those being getting the ball down the field a little bit more — [post routes, go routes], pushing the ball down the field a little bit more. I know our average depth of target went up in the second half of the season, but we've got to keep pushing that envelope a little bit especially with him and BT [receiver Brian Thomas Jr. href="https://athlonsports.com/tag/brian-thomas-jr"], that connection. So, it's more refining the finer things of what he can do at a high level. What are the areas that we put on the shelf to improve upon? Well, we're attacking those now.”

You could see the difference in the second half of the season, for the most part. In Weeks 1-9, Lawrence completed 173 of 293 passes for 1,840 yards, nine touchdowns, six interceptions, and a passer rating of 79.7. From Week 10 through the wild-card loss, Lawrence completed 184 of 297 passes for 2,374 yards, 23 touchdowns, eight interceptions, and a passer rating of 101.6.

If Coen can take Lawrence to the proverbial next level in 2026, that answers a lot of questions, If not, the Jaguars are in the unenviable position of having to raise all boats to make their quarterback situation what it needs to be.

What's the plan for Travis Hunter?

In 2025, the Jags made a massive trade with the Cleveland Browns to move up from the fifth to the second pick in the draft to take Colorado's Travis Hunter, the most prominent two-way player we've seen in... well, decades. What they chose to do with the receiver/cornerback star after that was the rough equivalent of trading your house for a Lamborghini, and then wondering why you don't have a driveway in which to park the car.

Most in the know understood that Hunter would be a better defensive player at the NFL level. The Jaguars thought differently. Before the torn LCL he suffered in late October that ended his rookie season, Hunter played 326 snaps on offense, and just 165 snaps on defense. Obviously, things could have been different were Hunter to have had more than seven games and four starts, but it was what it was, and things aren't much more defined now.

On offense last season, Hunter caught 28 passes on 43 targets for 298 yards and one touchdown. On defense, he allowed nine catches on 15 targets for 96 yards, 37 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, no interceptions, two pass breakups, and an opponent passer rating of 78.8.

"A minor setback for a major comeback," Coen said in early February of Hunter's future. "He will come back from this. He will be great. One step at a time, one day at a time. And what that looks like going forward, shoot, I can't tell you -- we were evolving as we went, right? Time at practice on offense, defense. We were pretty fluid with it, and so it will give us a great opportunity to evaluate it again this spring. I do expect him to return to form, though."

Fluidity and flexibility are good things, but are the Jaguars selling Hunter's potential short by asking him to do too much too soon? We can but wait and see.

Will the team's contrarian draft strategy pay off?

Consensus boards are all the rage in discussion when it comes how to deal with one's draft boards, but the Jaguars couldn't see to care less about that. General manager James Gladstone has been asked about the "wisdom of crowds" and aligning one's own draft preferences with the masses, and he's perfectly happy to think outside the box.

“I listen to what’s being said about players in a very real way,” Gladstone recently said. “I care about it. I listen to those in this building, and the people that we invited into this building, and what their perspective is on these players.

“We build consensus internally, and that is leveraged at every pick point. Our wisdom of the collective is how we phrase it, and it is what guides our decision-making. And I can tell you that when we get up on the clock, we’re looking at the draft board and we see on it our sentiment and Duval DNA, and those are the two north stars, so to speak, and that is a collective output.

”When we look at the guys that we select, we’re not selecting them without some version of consensus internally. Now, where you select a player and you talk about consensus mock drafts, it’s a very different conversation, and those don’t always align, because they don’t necessarily take into consideration the exact scheme or situation that the player is walking into. Talent is one thing, but really the intangible elements, the situation, the timing of a player’s arrival, those things are going to play a big part into what the rest of their career is going to look like and their impact on the football field or to a team in an organization.“

Well, the Jags' draft certainly went their own way. With no first-round pick because of the Travis Hunter deal, their first pick was Texas A&M tight end Nate Boerkircher, who was not generally seen as a guy who would be taken with the 56th pick in the second round. Nor was Texas A&M IDL Albert Regis, who Jacksonville selected 81st overall in the third round. Oregon guard Emmanuel Pregnon may turn out to be a steal with the 88th pick in the third round, but after that... it's tough to say at this point.

The rest of the crew is interesting, but is there a real first-year difference-maker here, or have the Jaguars taken their non-consensus mindset to new heights... or possibly new depths? Maybe these rolls of the dice make sense for a franchise that believes it's got everything going the right way at most positions, but the risks could provide few rewards in the short term.