The former first-overall pick, Trevor Lawrence, is signing a five-year extension worth up to 275 million dollars with the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jags are keeping their franchise quarterback through the 2028 season, and Lawrence will become tied with Joe Burrow for the highest annual paid player in NFL history. Becoming higher paid than elite quarterbacks such as Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Patrick Mahomes. And with this big extension, comes the question. Is Trevor Lawrence worth all the money? This is very fair question as there are many points to this.
Trevor Lawrence was regarded as a generational talent coming out of Clemson. And with a terrible Jaguars team needing a new quarterback, it was a perfect match. The Jags held the first-overall pick in the 2021 draft and selected Lawrence with that pick. In his rookie year, the young man would lead the league in interceptions and would only complete 59% of his passes. Even with these poor numbers, the team still had plenty of faith in Lawrence. In year two, Trevor Lawrence would show significant improvement and even took the Jaguars to the playoffs where the team would make it to the divisional round. Year three was supposed to be the year that Lawrence proves to the league that he is a top tier quarterback. But as we would later find out, that would not be the case. Lawrence would put up solid numbers but nowhere near the production that he was projected to do. The team would fall apart throughout the year and miss the playoffs.
In his three seasons, Lawrence has thrown for 11,770 yards which is seventh in the league for that period, his39 interceptions is tied for second, and he made it to one pro-bowl. Looking at an outside standpoint, Lawrence has mostly been disappointing in his career. Leading the Jaguars to the playoffs in 2022 is great accomplishment, but he has done little besides that. Do not get it wrong, he is a solid quarterback. He just does not have the production a team would want out a first-overall pick. Trevor is the franchise guy for Jacksonville, but he does not deserve elite money. In another words, football fans never put Lawrence’s name in the mix of elite quarterbacks such as Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson. So why should he be paid higher than all of them. It just does not make sense.
This extension also puts a team in a bad position when it comes to paying their quarterback. That team is the Mami Dolphins. The Dolphins’ starting quarterback is Tua Tagovailoa and he is also due for an extension. Many would argue that Tua and Lawrence are pretty similar when it comes to level of play. These men are solid quarterbacks, just not great ones. So, if Lawrence is getting paid top-tier money, why shouldn’t Tua get paid like that as well? Because we know that Tua is nowhere near the player that Mahomes, Herbert, or Allen are. So, this brings me back to my main question, why is Trevor getting paid like one. This Trevor Lawrence extension could lead to many quarterbacks being overpaid. Once again, Lawrence is a good quarterback and should be paid a good amount for his efforts to get the Jaguars back to relevancy. He is just simply not worth 55 million dollars a year.