The Kansas City Chiefs left Super Bowl LVII as the NFL's crown jewels, winning their second title in the last four years and putting the other 31 teams -- including the Jacksonville Jaguars -- in their rearview mirror.
Moving into 2023, the Jaguars and the rest of the league will spend their offseasons tinkering away at their rosters, coaching staffs, front offices, and scouting departments as they look for ways to beat the Chiefs. For every team with a Super Bowl window, the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes stand in the way.
This includes the Jaguars, who made it into the AFC's Final Four in 2022 after Doug Pederson led them to the Divisional Round, where they lost by just seven to the Chiefs in a winnable game.
After Pederson and the Jaguars won the AFC South with a 9-8 record behind the arm of Trevor Lawrence last season, the stage has been set for the Jaguars to explode moving forward. And according to NFL.com's Bucky Brooks, this includes being one of eight teams with a legitimate Super Bowl window entering next season.
Brooks has the Jaguars at No. 8 in his list of eight teams with a Super Bowl window after the Chiefs' win. The Jaguars fall behind the Chiefs, Bengals, Chargers, and Bills in the AFC, despite the Jaguars defeating the Chargers twice in 2022 and Lawrence and the Jaguars even beating Allen in an upset in 2021.
"The combination of a Super Bowl-winning head coach and an emerging star quarterback is enough to earn Jacksonville the last slot on this list. Doug Pederson and Trevor Lawrence helped the Jaguars advance to the Divisional Round with a mind-bending wild-card comeback in their first year of marriage, and the foundation this duo has put in place could lead to some banners and titles in Duval County in the coming years," Brooks wrote.
Lawrence has entered the conversation as one of the elites at the position after clicking with his veteran pass catchers down the stretch. And in Year 2 under Pederson, the former No. 1 overall pick should take another big step forward due to a better understanding of the scheme and philosophical approach.
With the Jaguars aiming to bring back tight end Evan Engram, who had a career year in 2022, the offense looks like a potential juggernaut, especially with former Falcons first-rounder Calvin Ridley on the road to reinstatement. Jacksonville has the firepower to make a run at the title as a dark-horse contender led by a five-star QB1 who is coming into his own.
All things considered, this feels like at least the right neighborhood of tiers for the Jaguars. One can argue whether they have a better trajectory than the Chargers; the Jaguars have better coaching, while the Chargers have more blue-chip players. Otherwise, it is fair to say the Jaguars are potentially the fourth-best AFC team moving forward, with a chance to be even better than that.
“We’re close. We’re close. I think the leadership is right, I think the core guys that we have are right," Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said at the end of the season. "Listen, it just boils down to continuing to work hard. Just trusting in each other and there’s consistency with the staff, there’s consistency with the players.
"You look at some of these teams now that are still playing and that’s what they’ve had. Cincinnati right now, they struggled early on, but these last couple of years, they’ve turned that corner. Kansas City is the same way, you look at the Eagles, you look at the Niners, these are teams that have been established for a while. These players have been around each other for a while. That’s what it takes. It takes that continuity and consistency; we’re just at the beginning phase of that.”
The Jaguars are hoping Lawrence improves even more in 2023, along with the rest of their young roster. If this happens, expect for the Jaguars to be one of the AFC's toughest outs for years to come.
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