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Long-time Footballguys subscribers know I’ve had a complicated history with Trevor Lawrence. A few seasons ago, I eviscerated him after an inexplicably bad rookie season, which was among the worst ever for a first-year starter. But he shrugged off that opening act with the opposite of a sophomore slump (the sophomore bump?), improving across the board and delivering a QB10 finish on a per-game basis. Unfortunately, he failed to match that 2022 trajectory in either 2023 or 2024, leading most managers to finally throw in the towel.
Then came the turning point when the Jaguars hired Liam Coen. Along with GM James Gladstone, Coen completely redefined the franchise’s expectations in their first season. Lawrence delivered his first legitimately great fantasy season, finishing as the QB4 overall and QB6 on a per-game basis. Even that sells the story short. Over the team’s final eight games, Lawrence was the No. 1 fantasy quarterback while leading the Jaguars to an 8-0 run, a division title, and their first double-digit win season since 2017.
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Before we look under the hood of this remarkable mid-year turnaround, here is why you should target Lawrence in your draft this season:
- Proven High Ceiling: Lawrence showcased his top-tier potential by pacing the entire league as the overall QB1 over the final two months of the season.
- Strong Roster Depth: The Jaguars boast one of the deepest wide receiver rooms in the NFL, protecting Lawrence’s baseline against any single injury.
- Clear Draft-Day Value: He is currently going as the QB11 off the board, meaning the market is baking in an aggressive regression and allowing you to acquire a high-upside starter at a discount.
The question on all our minds is: what can they do for an encore? I’ve generally been reluctant to put too much weight on partial-season samples. Full-season numbers are overwhelmingly more predictive than fractional streaks. But this time is different because the analytical context surrounding Lawrence and the team’s structural improvement is undeniable.
The Preseason Installation
Last year, Coen arrived with a fairly thin resume outside of one strong season in Tampa Bay maximizing Baker Mayfield. However, NFL circles viewed Coen as an organized, creative, detail-oriented coach who excelled as a teacher and communicator. To his credit, he promised a massive overhaul in Jacksonville that started with the team culture, extended into positional mechanics, and introduced a playbook designed for adaptability and explosiveness.
Of course, NFL history is littered with coaches who promised the world in August and delivered nothing by October. As expected, preseason reports before the real games got underway were encouraging, focusing heavily on Lawrence’s adjustment to the new offense:
- “You saw major improvements from Trevor since getting into the system,” Coen noted early on. “The system is not the easiest to learn with all the motions and shifts that we put on not just the quarterback but the entire unit. He’s starting to see it before it occurs now.”
- Coen saw everything coming together for Lawrence in practice, stating the details were “starting to become second nature for him.”
- “You are now starting to see that talent just out and be on display,” Coen said. “It’s not perfect every day but he is learning, and that is the beauty of it… He is mentally and physically tough. The great ones are always mentally and physically tough first.”
- “Your footwork, your eyes, your rhythm, when you progress, staying in that rhythm and not being able to have wasted movements in the pocket,” Coen added. “All of those things go into the coaching.”
The Early-Season Doubts
Early on, it didn’t look like those preseason promises were materializing. The offense looked clunky, the timing was off, and the fantasy community was ready to write off Lawrence’s draft cost as another burned investment.
Top 20 Fantasy Quarterbacks (Weeks 1-8, 2025)
Rank
Player
Team
Gms
Cmp%
PaYds
PaTD
INTs
RuYds
RuTD
FPT/Gm
FPTs
1
Patrick Mahomes II
KC
8
67.0
2,099
17
4
280
4
27.6
221.0
2
Lamar Jackson
BAL
4
71.6
869
10
1
166
1
26.3
105.1
3
Josh Allen
BUF
7
68.0
1,560
12
4
261
5
25.4
178.1
4
Drake Maye
NE
8
75.2
2,026
15
3
250
2
24.4
195.3
5
Jalen Hurts
PHI
8
70.2
1,677
15
1
207
5
24.2
193.6
6
Justin Herbert
LAC
8
67.9
2,140
16
7
248
–
23.6
188.8
7
Daniel Jones
IND
8
71.2
2,062
13
3
86
4
23.1
184.7
8
Matthew Stafford
LAR
7
66.1
1,866
17
2
(2)
–
22.7
159.1
9
Bo Nix
DEN
8
62.8
1,803
15
5
171
3
22.5
180.3
10
Brock Purdy
SF
2
65.8
586
4
4
30
–
22.2
44.3
11
Dak Prescott
DAL
8
70.3
2,069
16
5
87
1
22.1
177.2
12
Jayden Daniels
WAS
5
61.0
1,031
8
1
211
1
21.9
109.7
13
Jordan Love
GB
7
70.9
1,798
13
2
109
–
21.5
150.8
14
Baker Mayfield
TB
8
63.9
1,919
13
2
158
–
20.2
161.8
15
Jared Goff
DET
7
74.9
1,631
15
3
23
–
20.1
140.9
16
Caleb Williams
CHI
7
61.9
1,636
9
4
130
2
19.8
138.8
17
C.J. Stroud
HOU
7
66.8
1,623
11
5
177
–
19.7
137.9
18
Sam Darnold
SEA
7
68.2
1,754
12
4
41
–
19.4
135.8
19
Trevor Lawrence
JAX
7
58.7
1,620
9
5
113
2
19.3
135.3
20
Aaron Rodgers
PIT
7
68.3
1,489
16
5
18
–
19.3
135.3
Through seven games, the Jaguars sat at a mediocre 4-3. The offense was sputtering, averaging just 20.9 points per game while the defense surrendered 22.1. Lawrence himself looked lost in the new scheme, completing a dismal 58.7% of his passes with 9 touchdown passes against 5 interceptions. Heading into the bye week, Lawrence was sitting at QB19 in fantasy, making him essentially unstartable in standard single-QB leagues.
The Magical Bye Week
Teams always talk about the bye week as an essential break to mend wounds and reevaluate what’s working. But how often do we actually see a stunning, fundamental shift in execution coming out of that break? It’s incredibly rare, and usually, the changes are barely noticeable to the casual observer.
Coen had other ideas. The bye week served as an absolute launching pad for the franchise, sparking a transformation across all phases of the game.
Period
Context
Points/Gm
Points Allowed/Gm
Yds/Gm
Yds Allowed/Gm
Weeks 1-7
Before the Bye
20.9
22.1
334.9
336.9
Weeks 9-18
After the Bye
32.8
18.1
339.1
280.4
Shortly before the playoffs, ESPN’s Michael DiRocco published a brilliant deep dive highlighting the keys to this remarkable mid-year turnaround. Coen’s strategic blueprint came down to seven core pillars:
- Adaptation Over Ideology: Coen rejected rigid schemes, believing an “unwillingness to change” stalled teams. He rewrote the playbook when the passing game floundered early at just 207 yards per game.
- Performance Over Pedigree: He aggressively benched stagnant, high-priced veterans and former high draft picks on both sides of the ball, forcing underperforming players like Emmanuel Ogbah and Maason Smith to the inactive list.
- Roster Flexibility: He elevated lower-depth-chart targets like Travis Hunter and Parker Washington into prominent roles and maximized trade-deadline acquisition Jakobi Meyers to spark the offense.
- Youth Movement on Defense: He turned the defensive line rotation over to hungry, undrafted rookies like Danny Striggow and B.J. Green II to replace fading veteran production.
- Radical, Non-Personal Candor: He utilized elite communication skills to handle tough personnel choices with absolute honesty, creating a locker room culture centered on accountability rather than resentment.
- Mechanical Re-Engineering: He completely rewired Lawrence’s lifetime passing mechanics, fundamentally altering his shotgun stance by putting his left foot forward to fix the offense’s timing.
- Psychological Freedom: He removed the fear of mistakes by instructing Lawrence to simply “cut it loose.”
Cut It Loose, Indeed
“Cut it loose.” Those words may seem like empty coachspeak, but the post-bye results completely rewrite how we view Lawrence’s ceiling.
Top 20 Fantasy Quarterbacks (Weeks 11-18, 2025)
Rank
Player
Team
Gms
Cmp%
PaYds
PaTD
INTs
RuYds
RuTD
FPT/Gm
FPTs
1
Trevor Lawrence
JAX
8
62.7%
2,009
19
5
187
5
27.5
220.2
2
Matthew Stafford
LAR
8
62.7%
2,280
21
6
10
0
24.1
193.0
3
Brock Purdy
SF
7
70.6%
1,581
16
6
117
3
23.8
166.8
4
Drake Maye
NE
7
72.3%
1,839
12
3
167
2
23.7
165.7
5
Joe Burrow
CIN
6
68.2%
1,620
15
5
38
0
23.3
139.8
6
Josh Allen
BUF
8
68.0%
1,529
10
5
268
7
22.5
180.3
7
Jacoby Brissett
ARI
8
66.9%
2,248
15
7
86
0
21.8
174.0
8
Dak Prescott
DAL
8
64.9%
2,233
13
4
56
1
21.4
171.3
9
Tyler Shough
NO
7
69.7%
1,798
7
4
175
3
21.3
149.4
10
Jared Goff
DET
8
62.6%
2,329
14
5
22
0
21.2
169.7
11
Bo Nix
DEN
7
66.8%
1,805
7
3
151
2
20.3
142.4
12
Bryce Young
CAR
7
66.0%
1,497
12
4
132
1
19.7
138.1
13
Caleb Williams
CHI
8
55.3%
1,806
14
3
137
0
19.6
157.0
14
Jalen Hurts
PHI
7
60.1%
1,364
9
5
187
3
19.4
135.9
15
Patrick Mahomes II
KC
5
59.7%
1,238
5
6
137
1
19.1
95.6
16
Jaxson Dart
NYG
5
65.2%
855
5
2
170
2
18.0
89.8
17
C.J. Stroud
HOU
6
61.9%
1,339
8
3
20
1
17.3
104.0
18
Justin Herbert
LAC
6
64.9%
1,117
7
5
174
1
17.0
102.3
19
Baker Mayfield
TB
8
61.9%
1,501
10
9
224
1
16.8
134.5
20
Jordan Love
GB
6
61.4%
1,134
10
3
61
0
16.6
99.8
Once Lawrence stopped overthinking his footwork and trusted the system, he went on an absolute tear. Over those final eight games, he turned the Jaguars into an undefeated 8-0 juggernaut. More importantly for our purposes, he backed up that real-world success by averaging over 27 fantasy points per game during that stretch, solidifying himself as the overall QB1 for the final two months of the fantasy season.
The Keys to 2026
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