
Finishing the regular season with an eight-game winning streak, the Jacksonville Jaguars had hopes they could eke out a win at home against Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills, which didn’t come to fruition.
The Jaguars offense wasn’t the problem, scoring 24 points against the Bills' 27, while having more total offensive yards (361) than the Bills did (352). Having one of the better offenses during the regular season (11th, 337.4 yards) despite coming up short in the wild-card round, Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence feels as if their success is "sustainable" even after this loss.
"There's no guaranteed success, but I do feel like this is sustainable, the things that we're doing," Lawrence said, via NFL.com. "I know offensively and defensively, both sides of the ball had a hell of a year when it got down to the end, where we finished, and the growth that we had. I know what we're doing offensively. I feel like I've got a complete ownership of it and mastered it as the year went on, have a lot of confidence in that. The players, coaches, like I said. So I do feel like it's sustainable. But you have to earn it every year. It's not just going to happen. I guess that's the best way to put it."
Despite his flaws, Lawrence is a solid quarterback, having his third season in his career with 4,000 passing yards (4,007) while throwing for a career-high 29 touchdowns and having 12 interceptions. However, the issue for Lawrence and first-year head coach Liam Coen was that they were without their first-round draft pick and star two-way player Travis Hunter, who suffered a knee injury in the Jags' Week 7 drubbing at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams.
Given his injury and taking snaps on the defensive side of the ball, Hunter finished with 298 receiving yards and scored one touchdown. Lawrence and the Jaguars also lacked a clear No. 1 wide receiver, having no 1,000-yard receivers, with Parker Washington leading the team in receiving yards (847) and touchdowns (five).
Hunter can be a No. 1 option for Lawrence to keep this success going, but he will have to lose his dream of playing on both sides of the football. The number of hits and toll it will take on his body will force him at one point to choose. With wide receivers making more money than defensive backs on top of the Jags needing a star wideout, Hunter, from a business standpoint, should make the move.
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