Good games by two young Jaguars
Number 4: Jaguars edge rusher Josh Allen gets 3 sacks
Jacksonville’s pass rush is even worse than the Seahawks. In fact, it isn’t close. Jacksonville is last in the NFL in sacks with 8, 29th in quarterback hits (29) and 24th in pressure percentage (22.5 percent). Josh Allen leads the Jaguars in sacks with 2.
But Allen had 10.5 sacks in his rookie year of 2019 and made the Pro Bowl. In 2020, his season was limited to just 8 games because of a knee injury and he is still playing his way back a bit. But the Saints had bad pass-rushing statistics before playing the Seahawks in week 7 and came out of the game with 5 sacks. Seattle’s offensive line is once again helping players improve their future contract numbers.
Josh Allen will get 3 sacks on Geno Smith on Sunday. The problem for Allen is he won’t get a lot of help.
Number 3: Trevor Lawrence has his first career 400-yard passing game
Jacksonville theoretically has talented young players in the right positions, like edge rusher and quarterback. The question might be if the Jaguars have a coach good enough to lead them into the future. But when it comes to Trevor Lawrence he is already better in week 8 than he was in weeks one through three. In his first three games, Lawrence had 7 interceptions. In his last three (Jacksonville had a bye week in week 7), he has 1.
Lawrence also has a quarterback rating of 92.1 or better in each of the last three games. He is learning to do a bit more with fewer passes as well. While his receiving group isn’t massively talented, Lawrence will get his first 400-yard passing game (and second game with 3 touchdown passes) of his career against the Seahawks.