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Jaguars Daily: How Doug Pederson has weaponized Jacksonville

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Indianapolis Colts v Jacksonville Jaguars Photo by Courtney Culbreath/Getty Images

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It is Tuesday. We’re on to Philadelphia—after we spend just one more day celebrating a big win on the West Coast.

Here’s all the Jacksonville Jaguars news that’s fit to print, or find from around the Internet.

How Doug Pederson has weaponized the Jaguars

New head coach and offensive shot-caller Doug Pederson has completely transformed the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offense. The last time the franchise has won back-to-back games of 20+ points or more was in the year 2000. The offense is currently sitting fifth in the NFL in Football Outsiders’ DVOA (opponent-adjusted efficiency) metric.

Which has actually been the best DVOA through three games, ever!

Pederson has managed to call a well-balanced offense with a 55% passing play percentage. Also putting him in seventh in EPA per play efficiency.

Read more from Laurie Fitzpatrick over at Yahoo! Sports now.

What was the play of the game in the win against the Chargers?

Doug Pederson, Trevor Lawrence, and the rest of the Jacksonville Jaguars put on a clinic in their 38-10 victory against the Los Angeles Chargers. Like the Indianapolis Colts before them, the Chargers were far from 100% healthy against the Jaguars—but a +52 point differential in the past two weeks is incredible nonetheless.

Though it’s easy to forget now, this game wasn’t a complete ass-whooping from the start. The Jaguars held a multi-score halftime lead for a second straight time; but then Justin Herbert threw a ball (understatement of humanity) and Dustin Hopkins kicked another to suddenly make it a six-point ball game.

Following Los Angeles’ scoring drive to open the second half, Jacksonville faced a 4th-and-1 near midfield. Pederson called a perfect play that was well-executed by every player on the field, but none better than James Robinson.

Jaguars open as 7-point underdogs vs. Eagles

Another week and another dominate victory for the Jacksonville Jaguars to the tune of 38-10 over the Los Angeles Chargers. It was a shocking performance by the Jaguars,who headed into the game as a touchdown underdog, but they quickly took control of the game and never took their foot off the gas.

Even after back-to-back dominating wins, the Jaguars still get ready to head north to take on the Philadelphia Eagles as a 7-point underdog.

Read more from Alfie Crow over at Big Cat Country to dive deeper into this week’s odds.

Trevor Lawrence is playing like the star we expected

The Jacksonville Jaguars appear to have a real deal franchise quarterback. Trevor Lawrence is slowly becoming the bonafide signal-caller they were expecting him to be when he was selected with the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL draft.

Lawrence finished 28-of-39 for 262 yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions in Sunday’s 38-10 rout of the Los Angeles Chargers. It was the franchise’s first road win since 2019. Two straight weeks, Lawrence has had steady command of the Jaguars’ offense and has generally been accurate to all levels of the field. So far, moving on from Urban Meyer to new head coach Doug Pederson has been a great move for the Jaguars, and Lawrence is catching on quickly.

Read more from the incomparable Charles McDonald here.

Zay Jones: Doug Pederson has different style of coaching than I’m used to

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Zay Jones was one of the stars of the team’s 38-10 win against the Los Angeles Chargers, finishing with 10 receptions for 85 yards and a touchdown.

After the game, Jones wanted to pass the credit on to absolutely everybody other than himself. In an interview with Ashlyn Sullivan of Jaguars.com, he even gave a shoutout to backup quarterback C.J. Beathard for “a great knee at the end” of the game.

Read more from Jags Wire on the new receiver feeling right at home in Duval.

Doug Pederson doesn’t just beat you, he dominates you

First, lol.

Second, lmao.

Third, there are a LOT of reasons the Jacksonville Jaguars are this good, but Doug Pederson’s ability to turn this team’s post-Urban Meyer culture on a dime has been very impressive.

PFF lists safeties as “weak link” on Jaguars

Praise is rolling in for the Jacksonville Jaguars defense after a shutout victory over the Indianapolis Colts, but Pro Football Focus isn’t impressed with the team’s starting safeties, Rayshawn Jenkins and Andre Cisco.

In a post ranking the best secondaries in the NFL through two weeks, the Jaguars came in 26th, despite having a duo of cornerbacks that PFF called “excellent.”

“It’s the play of the safeties holding this defense back,” the post reads. “Andre Cisco continues to be too hit-or-miss, and Rayshawn Jenkins is just not good enough to be a full-time starter. If the Jaguars can improve their safety play, they could rise up this list dramatically throughout the season.”

Doug Pederson talks about budding relationship between Trevor Lawrence and Christian Kirk

The Jacksonville Jaguars spent big money on Christian Kirk with hopes that the receiver would be a reliable target to help second-year quarterback Trevor Lawrence have a breakout year.

So far, so good.

Kirk, 25, has led the Jaguars in receiving in each of their first two games and caught a pair of touchdown passes against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 2. Through his first two games with Jacksonville, he has 12 receptions for 195 yards, fourth most in the NFL as of Monday morning.

“It’s something that we’ve started back in the spring with those two kind of building that relationship,” Jaguars coach Doug Pederson said Sunday. “Christian [Kirk] is a great player. That’s why we went out and got him in free agency, and you can see it now two weeks in a row, some of the plays that he’s made. He’s made an impact for our offense.

Read more from Adam Stites on Yahoo! Sports.

Doug Pederson compares Trevor Lawrence to Hall of Fame quarterback

Doug Pederson has been around some talented quarterbacks in his career, and now he has a chance to help develop Trevor Lawrence. While those two have only been working together since January, Pederson already sees big things with the second-year quarterback.

While speaking to former quarterback Brett Favre on The SiriusXM Blitz with Brett Favre and Bruce Murray, the Jaguars head coach compared Lawrence to the Hall of Famer.

Jaguars predicted get at least 6 wins after 100,000 season-long simulations

The Jacksonville Jaguars will be much better than they were last year and improve upon their win total. That’s if The Athletic’s computers can be trusted.

The Athletic ran an NFL betting model using various metrics to create projections for each team. They then used these projections for each game of the season to get a projected spread and converted it into a projected winning percentage. After repeating this process 100,000 times, they were able to find an expected win total for each team.

For the Jaguars, that number was 6.2 wins this season. And even with an improved win-loss record, Greg Auman believes the early-season slate of games is going to be very important.