Jaguars' Trevor Lawrence Reflects on Chargers Playoff Win

Most believe Trevor Lawrence will answer the bell this season in Liam Coen’s offense. After all, over a 20-game stretch from 2022-23, he was among the league’s best quarterbacks.

The crown jewel of that stretch was the Jaguars’ 31-30 wild-card playoff win over the Chargers on Jan. 14, 2023. This past weekend in Lake Tahoe at the American Century Championship, Lawrence took time to remember that postseason win.

“It was looking bad, it really was,” Lawrence told Dan Katz and PFT Commenter on Barstool’s Pardon My Take. “I think that drive at the end of the first half, that drive was huge.”

Huge because when Lawrence found Evan Engram for a 9-yard touchdown with 24 seconds left before halftime, the Jaguars avoided a first-half shutout. They also snapped a dubious string of seven game-opening drives that consisted of four interceptions and three punts.

And while Lawrence showed grit and resilience in responding to those four interceptions, finishing the game with four touchdown drives and a walk-off field goal, he pointed the spotlight at his teammates.

“You gotta think about, too, our defense. We gave up three points in the second half,” Lawrence said. “So, if we gave up a touchdown, we lose. They had to lock in, too. And then we scored every possession. Yeah, it was an incredible game.”

Over the final 34 minutes, Jacksonville outscored the Chargers 31-3, leading everyone to question what Doug Pederson and players said at halftime that changed the trajectory of the game.

“I don't know,” Lawrence said. “We didn't even say much in the locker room. We scored and it was like, ‘Alright, it's one possession at a time. We gotta just find a way to get back in it.’ And then we scored another time and we got a stop.

“And now it's 27-14, or 30-14. I was like, ‘That's not bad. Now we're back in the game.’ And we just got hot.”

And as they got hot, the Chargers got cold. Lawrence said the psychological momentum that changed hands over the course of the game was palpable. He said Chargers defenders who were boisterous in the first half lost their voices, and he could sense that Los Angeles coaches were calling the game in an effort to avoid a loss, rather than to put the Jaguars away.

“Defensively, they got pretty conservative,” said Lawrence, who finished 28 of 47 for 288 yards, with four touchdowns and four interceptions. “The first half, there were just crazy pressures, crazy, funky stuff that they hadn’t done before, and they got us on a few things.”

But Lawrence and the Jaguars got the Chargers in the end. Los Angeles visits Jacksonville again this season in Week 11, when the Jaguars host Justin Herbert, Jim Harbaugh and the Chargers on Nov. 16.

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