In case you haven’t noticed – and judging by the attendance you haven’t – the Jacksonville Jaguars have managed to win a few ball games.
The Jaguars hosted the defending AFC South-champion Houston Texans on Sunday and came away with a 17-10 win. Wide receiver Brian Thomas caught a long pass from quarterback Trevor Lawrence that set up the game-winning score.
The Jaguars are now 2-1 and a game out of first place behind the Indianapolis Colts in the division (okay, I giggled).
“Very proud of this group,” head coach Liam Coen said after the game. “They played their tails off. They should take so much confidence from this, especially defensively.”
Trevor Lawrence talks about fighting through the team’s struggles
Lawrence wasn’t particularly good on Sunday going 20-40 with 222 yards passing, no touchdowns and one interception. Still, he fought through the struggles and managed to squeak out a good win.
“Yeah, just keep encouraging, keep getting guys to just next-play mentality, think that way and it’s not all on them, too,” Lawrence said after the game. “There’s a lot of stuff that — you know, I didn’t play my best today so there’s a lot of throws that I want back or I didn’t put in the spot I wanted to and it’s all of us together.
“It was good to see us not let that dictate how we were going to finish the game and just find a way to make a couple of plays at the end when it mattered to, you know, to go up.”
Lawrence talks about the big play to Thomas at the end
On the game-winning drive, Thomas caught a 46-yard pass to put the Jaguars in the driver’s seat. Following the game, Lawrence was asked how that big play went down.
“It was awesome,” the former No. 1-overall pick said. “Just next-play mentality. I think it was a good example of that in today’s game. Things didn’t go our way for a lot of the game offensively, just finding a way to make the next play. They had a cover zero pressure that we were able to see, identify, and get to the right play and Brian [WR Brian Thomas Jr.] just did a great job of winning and making the play.
“That’s what I told him on the sideline. ‘Hey, stay in it, you’re going to end up making the play to set this one up for us to go win it.’ And it happened.”
Thomas finished the game with two catches for 55 yards.
Trevor Lawrence says the defense came up huge
Lawrence and the offense managed to score a go-ahead touchdown late to get the victory, but the quarterback acknowledged that the defense was a huge factor. Any time you can hold an opposing team to just 10 points, you should win.
“And obviously our defense can’t say enough about how they just kept fighting and had our back,” Lawrence said. “The turnovers, the big stops. We put them in some bad positions and they just kept making stops and kept playing. They never looked at us and were like ‘what are you doing?’ when they easily could have. We were playing pretty bad there the middle stretch of the game, so hats off to them.
“It’s a team. It’s a team game and you find a way to win and you fix the stuff that needs to be corrected but it’s a lot more fun when you win.”
The Jaguars travel to San Francisco next Sunday to take on the 49ers at 4:05 p.m. ET.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Trevor Lawrence Credits Defense in Win Over Texans appeared first on Heavy Sports.