Jaguars offense picking up where it left off last season in key area

Just as the Jacksonville Jaguars’ offense did in last week’s joint practice with the Saints, Trevor Lawrence and Co. were again successful in the red zone against the Panthers in Wednesday’s practice.

At one point during the practice, John Shipley of Jaguars on SI noted that Lawrence threw touchdown passes on three consecutive plays. Shipley added that Carolina had “some real issues” defending the Jaguars‘ tight ends in this part of the field.

In Year 1 under Liam Coen, the Jaguars’ offense was quite successful in the red area, particularly down the stretch, and that has seemed to carry over into this year’s training camp.

“I thought we were pretty good the back half of the year in the red zone,” Coen said. “I think we finished in the top five in the NFL. Like he made a couple off schedule throws and that’s what I would attribute a lot of it to, to be honest, is when we got better in the red zone last year was open receivers in the red zone.”

With less space to operate in a condensed part of the field, passing the ball in the red zone can be challenging. So Lawrence’s ability to buy time and extend plays has been a key factor in Jacksonville’s red zone surge.

“Like it’s so much tighter,” Coen said of the red zone. “There’s less vertical grass, and especially versus like three-man, four-man rush, it’s just challenging. And so you watch around the league of the top red zone touchdowns every week and 90% of them are off schedule. They’re just, hey man, you got to buy a little time, find a window, somebody’s got to make a little move and boom, touchdown. And it’s not exactly how you draw it up, but it’s football. And so that’s definitely helped in the quarterback run game.”

The offense’s red zone results in practice have been more up and down. However, that is likely a product of going up against a very stout Jaguars’ run defense unit. When an offense doesn’t have a rushing attack to lean on inside the 20-yard line, that unit can become pass-heavy and predictable, which makes it difficult to move the ball with consistency.

This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: Jaguars offense picking up where it left off last season in key area