Plenty of NFL teams are having weird seasons, but few are as strange as the one the Jacksonville Jaguars are enduring. Struggles were expected, especially after some of the odd meltdowns they’ve had in the last couple of years, but it’s safe to say that no one thought we’d be here.
The presence of Trevor Lawrence seemed to guarantee a .500 campaign for the Jags, give or take. But with Lawrence seemingly about to undergo shoulder surgery, former #1 pick Mac Jones will step into the breach. It’s an intriguing under-the-radar development if you follow the NFL’s constant quarterback merry-go-round, and Jones’ career likely rests on the outcome.
Mac Jones emerges from the NFL’s witness protection program
In today’s current QB climate, high draft picks who fail egregiously basically go into the NFL’s version of the witness protection program for a couple of years. Their flaws are dissected and analyzed, and once they get benched and traded, they’re largely forgotten.
Mac Jones definitely falls into that category, but he’s getting his chance at redemption way sooner than expected. The timeline in Jacksonville had him sitting behind Lawrence this year and rebuilding his shattered confidence, then becoming a free agent and takin his chances in the backup QB market.
Now he gets a chance to salvage his reputation, and his opportunity could be far more than a cameo. If the surgery scenario happens, he’ll get eight games to show what he can do, starting today against the Vikings. Those games won’t matter much to anyone beyond the team’s battered fan base and some bettors looking for bargains, but there’s plenty of intrigue going on behind the scenes.
Doug Pederson and Shad Khan are sending different messages
Doug Pederson is desperate to save his job, so he’s slow-walking the surgery possibility. His messaging this week was mostly about getting Lawrence healthy again, and he’s focused mostly on this week’s contest against Minnesota.
Meanwhile, rumors are leaking out left and right that Lawrence is about to be shut down to have surgery on his non-throwing shoulder. Ian Rapaport of the NFL Network is the most prominent reporter to go with this story, but he’s not the only one. With Jacksonville sitting at 2-7 and playing like a team that’s competing hard against the Titans for a cellar spot in the AFC South, there’s little point in playing Lawrence if he truly does need surgery.
Is Mac Jones a tryout or a white flag?
Meanwhile, we get Mac Jones. The tryout/white flag issue actually a bit of a trick question, because both of these things can be true at once.
For ownership, starting Jones is basically Shad Khan waving a tentative white flag, then sticking his finger into the wind to see if his decision sticks. Everyone knows he’s going to fire Pederson when the season is over, and GM Trent Baalke’s future is on the ropes as well, depending on whether Khan decides to completely clean house. If Jone can play well enough to keep fans from fleeing, the surgery decision for Lawrence basically becomes a no-brainer.
For Mac Jones, though, this is a tryout. He probably has no future in Jacksonville, but if he can play well enough to convince NFL execs that he deserves a second chance to compete for a starting job, his immediate future gets a lot brighter.
The range of possible outcomes
The possibilities here are intriguing. Jones has first-round talent and an Alabama pedigree, although at this point it looks like he was seriously over-drafted as the fifteenth pick in the first round.
The best case here is that he can write his own version of the Sam Darnold story and shock the league into taking him seriously again. Jones doesn’t have Darnold’s arm strength, but he came into the league fundamentally sound, and he might make sense for a team that needs a reliable system quarterback if he can avoid the mistakes and histrionics that doomed him in New England.
The worst case is that Jones once again plays cover-your-eyes bad, which would cinch his career as a clipboard carrier. Jones won’t have much to work with in Jacksonville, but he does have star rookie Brian Thomas, Jr. from LSU, and the trio of Christian Kirk, Evan Engram and Gabe Davis can be competent under the right conditions. Those conditions probably won’t happen in Jacksonville, but Jones situation is worth keeping an eye on given where the Jags were a year or two ago.