
Despite their victory on Sunday over the Arizona Cardinals, many Jaguars fans wondered whether there was a problem with quarterback Trevor Lawrence.
Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski defended Lawrence in his weekly press conference and praised his ability to not get rattled in critical situations.
Udinski discusses his quarterback’s resilience in the face of adversity.
“When you have success on the other side of it, the resilience to go from one drive to the next drive, but additionally to know we can make mistakes and still overcome that," Udinski said. "Not that we would ever want to do that, but there is an element of doubt sometimes for certain players when they go out there and make mistakes and say, even if I play well, can I play well enough to overcome that?
"So, to be able to go out there and do your job and do it at a high level and know that is enough to overcome a mistake in a game, that's freeing moving forward to say, I can go play fast and I don't want to make mistakes, we’ve got to be better about protecting the ball, but if I do, we can play well enough to overcome those things, which is huge."
The big question is what’s going on with the passing game and what the team needs to do to improve it.
Udinski says it’s comes down to the chemistry between the quarterback and the wide receivers.
“I think there's a lot of things that go into it. Hopefully, regardless of who's out there at receiver, more time on task and more time together is going to produce a better product in the pass game," Udinski said. "It's going to produce more chemistry between those guys, just pitching and catching or understanding the space I’ve got to get to, the timing I’ve got to get there, the way I'm releasing on a certain route, the way this release pattern distributes, versus this coverage, it plays out like this, versus that coverage, it plays out like that."
Udinski said chemistry is hard to come by and that it takes time and practice. There is a lot to learn, by the quarterback and by the receivers.
"There is an element of guys having a certain chemistry and finding what guys are good at certain routes and certain concepts. What routes are good for the quarterback, what routes are good for Jakobi [WR Jakobi Meyers], Parker [WR Parker Washington], B.T. [WR Brian Thomas Jr.], Dyami [WR Dyami Brown], all of our guys?
"So, as we get better as a unit, it should naturally improve. But finding those guys and finding what they do well together, what they do well with the quarterback, does make a difference for those guys when it's playing on time and playing in rhythm," Udinski said. "All those things we talk about."