Through the Quarterback's Eyes: Trevor Lawrence to Brian Thomas

Breaking Down a key 58-Yard Reception vs. the Patriots

Things were looking grim in the early going for the Jaguars on Sunday. They trailed the Patriots 10-0 and seemed to be on their way to a 1-6 record.

But after a touchdown and a defensive stop, they got the ball back and trailed by just 3. Then Trevor Lawrence hit rookie Brian Thomas off of play-action for an explosive 58-yard completion that set up the go-ahead score. The Jaguars would roll to victory from there.

Lawrence described the play after the game: “They were in basically a cover 4 quarters look and safeties were low. And that was honestly the look we were wanting for that play.”

The Patriots were trying to disguise that cover-4 look, however. Their safeties were moving around and appeared to be rotating to cover-3. But then they backed out just a split second before the snap:

I can’t tell you if Lawrence had indicators based on the Patriots’ tendencies that let him know this would be quarters regardless of how the safeties were moving pre-snap. Perhaps he saw those safeties back out before he turned his back to carry out the playfake?

Either way, he was certainly able to confirm the coverage soon after the snap. As you can see below, Lawrence did a great job of getting his head around quickly after the run fake:

That allowed him to eye both safeties before getting to the top of his drop. He could see they were in quarters and that those safeties were playing low:

Lawrence now knew that the middle of the field would be open and that Brian Thomas’s post would have a chance:

As Lawrence said afterwards, “Brian did a great job of just running at the corner, keeping outside leverage.”

What he means is that Thomas was able to use his route stem to widen cornerback Christian Gonzalez. Gonzalez was playing with outside leverage from the snap, and if Thomas had just run straight upfield and then broke in, Gonzalez would have been able to read the route and get inside or over the top more easily to take it away.

But because Thomas ran at Gonzalez, attacking his outside leverage, he was able to widen him further. And that created more separation to the inside:

Below you can see his route stem in full. Notice how Gonzalez widened when Thomas made a slight move at him:

That was all Lawrence needed to then “put it out there [and] let [Thomas] go make a play.”

Great catch and great concentration by Thomas.

Lawrence probably could have made his life a bit easier by throwing that ball more across the field to let Thomas separate further. But clearly there was enough of a window to complete this. And for the type of throw he chose to make, Lawrence did put this in a perfect spot.

4 plays later, the Jaguars would take the lead and never relinquish it.

As Lawrence said after the game, “[Thomas has] been making a lot of plays for us. So it’s fun to watch him, its fun to play with him, and just to see him get better every week…we gotta keep using him.”

That’s absolutely right. If the Jaguars want to get back into this thing, they’ll need to keep feeding the ball to their rookie stud wide receiver.