Trevor Lawrence Talks Jaguars, Doug Pederson, Gatorade and More in B/R Interview

Trevor Lawrence will team up with Doug Pederson on the Jacksonville Jaguars this year, and he's ready to run his new head coach's most famous play. 

"I hope so," Lawrence told Bleacher Report with a laugh when asked if he is going to get to run the Philly Special that Pederson called during the Philadelphia Eagles' Super Bowl LII win over the New England Patriots. "Maybe we'll dress it up a little bit differently. Who knows. That would be awesome."

While he doesn't know who will throw him the ball like Trey Burton did to Nick Foles, he knows it won't be former Clemson teammate Travis Etienne Jr.

"He threw me a couple in college, and it wasn't great," he joked.

Perfecting the Philly Special may take some practice, but the presence of Pederson should be quite the boost for Lawrence heading into his second season in the NFL. After all, Pederson has an offensive background from his time as a quarterbacks coach for the Eagles and an offensive coordinator for the Kansas City Chiefs even before he was the head coach in Philadelphia.

He went 42-37-1 and reached the playoffs three times as Philadelphia's head coach from 2016 through 2020. The Super Bowl win during the 2017 campaign saw Pederson maximize his quarterbacks with Carson Wentz playing like an MVP candidate before Foles took over and outdueled Tom Brady following the starter's torn ACL.

"I haven't watched a ton of their tape yet. I think going back and watching some of those games in Philly will be big," Lawrence said. "They had a lot of success offensively, early with Carson and then when Carson got hurt and Nick Foles came in they ended up winning the Super Bowl and still kept it rolling. That's impressive from a coaching standpoint for your starting quarterback, who was an MVP candidate at that point of the season, for him to get hurt and for them to still be able to win the Super Bowl is pretty impressive. I think that says a lot about Coach Pederson and that staff."

It comes as no surprise then that Jacksonville targeted Pederson, who was also a quarterback himself before coaching, given how important it will be for the franchise that Lawrence fulfills his potential as the No. 1 pick of the 2021 NFL draft.

Their relationship already got off to a great start when Lawrence welcomed his new coach to Jacksonville with some ice cream:

"Being able to talk to him on the phone, and I met him in person last week, I really like him," the quarterback said. "I think his personality fits well with mine. I think we're going to get along great. Just talking a little bit about football, I can tell he's really smart and knows what he's doing. So I'm really excited to learn this new offense and get going."

There's nowhere to get going but up for the Jaguars after a 3-14 campaign that featured plenty of adversity. 

Etienne was lost for the year to injury before he even played a game, and wide receiver DJ Chark Jr. suffered a season-ending injury after just four games. As if losing his weapons wasn't a big enough challenge for the young signal-caller, head coach Urban Meyer was fired after a 2-11 start and a saga of headlines that included allegations he kicked former kicker Josh Lambo and video circulating of a woman who wasn't his wife dancing on him at a bar.

Those were far from easy circumstances for a rookie quarterback, and Lawrence struggled at times while completing 59.6 percent of his passes for 3,641 yards, 12 touchdowns and 17 interceptions.

However, he ended on a high note while leading the Jaguars to a victory over the Indianapolis Colts that knocked their division rivals out of the playoffs.

"I learned a lot," he said. "Obviously it wasn't an easy year. There were some good things that happened but a lot of challenges and a lot of adversity. Learning how to deal with that and trying to be consistent and be the same person every day is something that was really challenging this year because of all the uncertainty. Not winning a lot of games and trying to be that same guy every day, I learned a lot about myself. I'm really proud of the way we finished, and I think that's something to build on next year with the way we played in that last game."

Photo Credit: Gatorade

His next game after the Colts win didn't come on an NFL field but at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles.

Lawrence partnered with Gatorade and fellow athletes J.J. Watt, DK Metcalf, Robert Woods and Todd Gurley to join Los Angeles children in a flag football game as part of an initiative to make sports more accessible for youth.

The Gatorade athletes joined Laureus USA—which strives to use the power of sport to "end violence, discrimination and disadvantage against young people and children"—and the Woodcraft Rangers—which helps youth in Los Angeles through different experiences, programs and initiatives—to provide a grant to cover field cost times until 2024 for local children.

"It was just fun being out there with the kids," he said. "Gatorade is doing some really awesome things in the community, and it's great being able to be a part of that. ... Giving back to the community is important to me and my wife [Marissa]. That's something we love to be a part of. Really glad we were able to be here today. It's really cool seeing those kids, and the impact sports has on those kids is really special, so it was a lot of fun."

While Lawrence is making an impact with his work off the field, he will be expected to make a second-year jump on it in 2022.

That is especially true after he played a full 17-game schedule as a rookie ahead of what should be more franchise stability with a Super Bowl champion and veteran coach in Pederson instead of Meyer.

"There's a lot of things I want to get better at," he said. "The biggest things when you look at the game: I want to work on my accuracy, consistency and then just the way I play the game. I thought as the year went on I got a lot better, but that's such a big part of the NFL that is different from college, the situational football is so much more important. Every game comes down to one or two possessions, so you just really have to take advantage of them. And then just consistency, there's a lot of games where I played really well in the first half and didn't play great in the second half, or vice versa. Playing more complete games and giving us the best chance to win. Those are things I really want to work on and improve on this year."

The perfect blueprint for doing just that will take the field during Sunday's Super Bowl.

After all, Lawrence and Joe Burrow will always be connected considering they faced each other during the College Football Playoff National Championship Game to end the 2019 campaign and were No. 1 overall picks in back-to-back years in 2020 and 2021.

Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Burrow's rookie season was also far from ideal considering he suffered a torn ACL, but he made quite the second-year leap and led the Cincinnati Bengals all the way to the sport's biggest stage by defeating Patrick Mahomes in the AFC Championship Game.

"It's really impressive what he's doing, really cool to watch," Lawrence said. "That's obviously a positive thing for me looking at that. The changes they made, the improvements they made in one year is really unbelievable. ... That's obviously the plan. Every situation is different, but that's the goal is to make it to the Super Bowl and win the Super Bowl. For us, who knows how fast that will be. We have a lot of improvements to make, but I know we can make a lot of them rather quickly. So I'm excited to just get back and go to work on those things we can improve on. I know it's going to be a much better year this year."

Perhaps it will be Lawrence's turn to take the football world by storm in his second season in 2022.