Through four weeks of the season, the Jacksonville Jaguars are winless on the season looking for answers anywhere they can find them. And shortly after their Week 4 loss to the Houston Texans, star quarterback Trevor Lawrence sent a clear message to some of his frustrated teammates.
Just two seasons ago, the Jaguars appeared to be a team on the rise in the AFC, reaching the postseason in Trevor Lawrence’s second year in the NFL.
Now, both Lawrence individually and the Jaguars as a whole have struggled mightily early on in this season. But despite these struggles, Lawrence believed it is important for the team to “stay together”.
“We just have to keep playing. We have to stay together,” Lawrence said in his Week 4 postgame press conference, transcribed by Pro Football Talk. “It’s some adversity, It’s been tough, you know, obviously not having the success that we want and it’s a lot of guys in there that put a lot of time in. Coaches and players and really everyone that works with the team. So it’s frustrating, it’s hard, but you have some adversity, you got to get through it, get to the other side of it and it will help you in the long run and that’s what we’re preaching as a team.
“It’s frustrating it’s not going our way and we weren’t able to find a way to win this game. We had some mistakes out there, but we just have to stay together. It’s going to teach us something. It’s going to prepare us for the future and stay positive. There’s things that we did well today, we just have to do more of it and I don’t think we need to blow everything up and start over. We got good players, we have a good scheme offensively. We had great things today, we just got to consistently make those plays. I thought we had a lot of opportunities, so just keep working. That’s the message, just keep working this week.”
This is the correct mindset to have as a leader. But obviously, this task of staying together amidst the struggles will be easier said than done.
Both coaches and players may be playing for their jobs if these struggles continue. And perhaps even Lawrence himself could find himself falling out of favor in Jacksonville if these losses continue to pile up.
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.