JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Trevor Lawrence knows what a fractured locker room looks like. He experienced it as a rookie in 2021 under then-Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer.
Lawrence said this season feels far from that debacle three years ago.
“I shouldn’t even have to answer it,” Lawrence said, responding to a report that coach Doug Pederson has lost the trust of his players. “Not at all, and I don’t know where that’s coming from, so I don’t even want to really expand on something that’s just not true.”
The Jaguars are the NFL’s only winless team. It’s the sixth 0-4 start in franchise history, and the first one that doesn’t include a head coach in his first or second season.
Pederson and the Jags have dropped nine of 10 going back to last season, and this year’s skid includes two late-game collapses and a prime-time embarrassment. But Pederson insists it's created no behind-the-scenes discord.
“Yeah, I would know. I talk to these guys every day,” Pederson said. “I see ’em every day and, no, I have not lost the locker room. I think these guys have done everything I’ve asked.
“They continue to play and practice hard and battle, and it’s a good group. It’s a good group. The right leaders are in there and they know what we need to do and they’re not making excuses for it, and I’m not going to make excuses; we just got to go do it.”
The Jaguars host Indianapolis (2-2) on Sunday and will try to extend their home-winning streak against the Colts to 10 games, including one matchup in London.
Pederson’s squad played better in a 24-20 loss at Houston last week, a setback that included several missed opportunities. Lawrence overthrew three receivers, including two for would-be touchdowns, and Gabe Davis let a pass in the end zone bounce off his facemask. Right guard Brandon Scherff whiffed on a fourth-and-goal draw, and the defense failed to get a stop in crunch time.
Pederson may have raised eyebrows when he said after the game, “As coaches, we can’t go out there and make the plays, right?”
But Pederson’s players have come to his defense since.
“I love playing for Coach Pederson; it’s the reason why I came here,” receiver Christian Kirk said. “I know everybody else can say the same. We have so much fun coming in here. He just creates an environment for us to go out there and own it.
“This is our team. It’s a player-run team. Doug has done a great job of just putting in our hands and helping facilitate that. We all know he wants the best for us.”
Tight end Evan Engram echoed that sentiment and called any talk about Pederson losing the locker room “just not true.”
“You go down this road, you’re not having success, you work your butt off all offseason and training camp and things aren’t going your way, a lot of human nature does point to why, saying why, asking why, being the victim," Engram said. "You can’t create an outcome that you want. You can’t choose to win.
“You have to go earn it, you have to work for it. You have to have faith in the unseeable result. That’s what this team does, that’s what this team is built on and we’re going to keep doing that until the results that we want eventually come.”
Lawrence and his teammates lost their first five games in 2021 before beating Miami in London. The season started to spiral two weeks earlier when Meyer chose to stay in Ohio following a Thursday night game at Cincinnati.
“Being a rookie and pretty naive, I didn’t really understand the situation either until obviously later in the season," Lawrence said. “That’s when it started to feel pretty grim. ... This is a much better team from a lot of standpoints, but we’ve just got to click and we’ve got to go prove it.”
___
AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl
Mark Long, The Associated Press
