Former Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence stepped up Sunday, coming through in the clutch for the Jacksonville Jaguars on his birthday.
Lawrence, who turned 25 on Sunday, delivered a strong performance to help the Jaguars (1-4) earn their first win of the 2024 season.
The 2021 No. 1 overall pick led Jacksonville to a 37-34 home victory over the Indianapolis Colts, completing 28 of his 34 passes for 371 yards and two touchdowns.
Although he threw an interception in the third quarter, Lawrence came through when his team needed him in crunch time and guided Jacksonville down the field for the go-ahead, 49-yard field goal with 17 seconds remaining.
“It’s always good to use these games to build confidence,” Lawrence said. “It gives you confidence moving forward, I think for myself and for the team. … I thought it was good for us to continue to deal with the adversity and to find a way to finish when things didn’t go perfect. The end of the game didn’t go perfect, but we found a way to get the ball in position and have a shot for a game-winning field goal, and Cam (Little) made it.
“So, I think that’s going to make us better as a team, too, that even the first win of the season was tough and came down to the very end, and we had to earn it. So, I think all that is going to build confidence moving forward.”
Lawrence, who before Sunday had lost nine straight starts dating back to last season, had an 85-yard touchdown pass to Brian Thomas in the second quarter and a 4-yard touchdown pass to Brenton Strange in the fourth quarter that was set up by a 61-yard pass to Christian Kirk.
Lawrence went 3 of 3 passing for 34 yards on the drive that ended with the game-winning field goal.
“It feels good to win,” Lawrence said of snapping his losing streak as a starter. “It’s why you play the game. It feels great to win. It feels good for some of the hard work to pay off. Like I said, first four weeks not going our way, it is tough and it’s draining, honestly, when you put the time in, you put the work in and you’re not getting the results for various different reasons.
“So, it feels good today, and like I said, it wasn’t perfect. There was plenty of mistakes out there. I had some myself. You just keep playing. You play 60 minutes. So, it’s cool when that all clicks and pays off, and you get a chance to win a game like that. But it’s just one game. We can’t flip out over one game, but we are going to celebrate it because we’ve been working hard, and it’s big for us and we’re going to use it to propel us.”
Up next for Lawrence and the Jags is two straight games in London against the Chicago Bears and New England Patriots. Both games will kick off at 9:30 a.m. ET and be televised on NFL Network.
–Photo courtesy Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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