Culture
The Jaguars overestimated themselves. Did they overestimate Trevor Lawrence, too?
The NFL’s biggest surprise teams through Week 4 reside at opposite ends of the standings.
The Minnesota Vikings are 4-0 after losing their highly drafted rookie quarterback and substituting the well-traveled Sam Darnold in his place.
GO DEEPER
Assessing 4-0 teams, from Vikings’ shocking start to Chiefs’ WR setback: Sando’s Pick Six
The Jacksonville Jaguars are 0-4 less than four months after rewarding their quarterback, Trevor Lawrence, with a $275 million extension.
Here’s another surprise: Lawrence’s statistical production through his 54 career starts mirrors the production for Darnold to the same point in his career (Darnold has made starts No. 57-60 this season).
It’s early for a Jaguars autopsy, but so far, Jacksonville fits the profile of a team that overestimated itself, symbolized most resoundingly when paying its quarterback. The team is facing tough questions earlier than anticipated because winnable games slipped away, leaving the Jaguars 0-4 for the second time in four seasons with Lawrence, and for the fourth time in 13 seasons with owner Shad Khan.
The schedule delivers beatable opponents over the next three weeks in the Indianapolis Colts (2-2), Chicago Bears (2-2) and New England Patriots (1-3), but enough has gone wrong through the Jaguars’ first four games to examine the evidence. Including that Darnold-Lawrence comp.
“It will not end well”
The Jaguars are not the only team to invest market-setting dollars in a quarterback carrying question marks long before there was a deadline for making a decision. The Miami Dolphins acted similarly with Tua Tagovailoa, as did the Arizona Cardinals with Kyler Murray. Both Lawrence and Murray signed extensions with two years remaining on their rookie contracts.
Shortly after the Jaguars extended Lawrence’s deal for $55 million annually, 50 coaches and executives voting in my 2024 Quarterback Tiers survey combined to place Lawrence in Tier 3. Lawrence ranked 16th. Tagovailoa was one spot higher. Murray was one spot lower. (Those three quarterbacks’ teams are a combined 2-10 this season.)
GO DEEPER
NFL QB Tiers 2024: Only 2 join Mahomes in Tier 1; Rodgers, Herbert drop out
The deal for Lawrence came after the Jaguars lost five of their final six games last season, with the only victory coming against Carolina, when Lawrence was unavailable because of injury.
“They have a quarterback they think is a superstar, and he is not a superstar,” a QB Tiers voter said over the summer. “Ownership thinks he is a superstar. It will not end well.”
The implication was that Lawrence can be good, but not great, and that he isn’t good enough consistently enough to meet sky-high expectations.
“Make no mistake, this is the best team assembled by the Jacksonville Jaguars, ever,” Khan told fans in late August. “Best players, best coaches. But most importantly, let’s prove it by winning now.”
The Darnold comp
Through 54 starts, Darnold and Lawrence had identical won-lost records (20-34), the same yards per pass attempt (6.7) and nearly the same average air yards per attempt. Their passer ratings lagged. Darnold took more sacks. Lawrence suffered from more dropped passes.
Lawrence had the better expected points added (EPA) per pass play, but in looking at the table below, we would never conclude that one of these quarterbacks deserved a market-setting extension, while the other was an abject failure.
Darnold and Lawrence, first 54 starts
| QB | Darnold | Lawrence |
|---|---|---|
|
W-L |
20-34 (.370) |
20-34 (.370) |
|
Cmp % |
60.2% |
63.1% |
|
Yds/att |
6.7 |
6.7 |
|
TD-INT |
61-53 |
62-40 |
|
Rating |
79.2 |
84.6 |
|
Sack % |
7.4% |
5.4% |
|
Explosive pass % |
15.8% |
14.0% |
|
Rush TD |
12 |
11 |
|
Avg air yds |
8.1 |
8.0 |
|
Fumbles (lost) |
32 (13) |
35 (21) |
|
Passes dropped (%) |
63 (3.7%) |
106 (5.5%) |
|
EPA/pass play |
-0.07 |
-0.01 |
Both players experienced terrible team situations early in their careers — Darnold with the New York Jets in the NFL’s largest media market, Lawrence with Jacksonville in its smallest.
GO DEEPER
Inside Urban Meyer’s disastrous year with Jaguars
“Good players can be in bad situations, bad players can be in good situations and it takes a little while to figure out the true merit sometimes,” a veteran coach said.
Lawrence badly missed two open receivers, Christian Kirk and rookie Brian Thomas Jr., for what would have been long touchdown passes during the Jaguars’ 24-20 defeat at Houston in Week 4.
With those throws presumably in mind, coach Doug Pederson pushed back when asked after the game about possibly taking over play-calling duties from offensive coordinator Press Taylor.
“For what?” Pederson replied. “I thought he called a great game. As coaches, we can’t go out there and make the plays. It’s a two-way street.”
Lawrence missed Thomas along the right sideline for what would have been another big gain. Receivers made diving catches to secure two shorter throws. Other passes were imprecise enough to limit yards after the catch. Most of the misses were overthrows.
“When someone is so consistently spraying the ball and they are a guy who was a No. 1 overall (draft choice), I almost always feel like there is some element of, I don’t want to say the yips, but some sort of mechanical, fundamental thing,” NFL quarterback-turned-analyst J.T. O’Sullivan said while breaking down every Jaguars offensive play from Week 4 for his Patreon subscribers.
O’Sullivan noted that Lawrence in this game hopped backward unnecessarily while throwing. Bad habits can set in when quarterbacks do not trust their pass protection. Lawrence took a punishing hit early in the Houston game as the Texans’ physical defensive front asserted itself.
The Jaguars rank 16th in ESPN’s pass-block win rate metric and 23rd in Pro Football Focus’ pass-block grading, which doesn’t seem so bad. Reviews from within the league have been harsher.
“They play up front like they can’t wait until the play is over — tough to watch,” a personnel executive said before the Houston game. “The quarterback is missing easy throws. There’s bad body language. Just in general, offensively, a downtrodden group.”
Considering a potential Wentz parallel
The Philadelphia Eagles ranked 18th in offensive EPA per play during Pederson’s Super Bowl-winning tenure as their coach from 2016 to 2020. That period encompassed the rise and fall of Carson Wentz. Is Lawrence following a similar arc on a smaller scale?
The chart above compares the cumulative pass EPA for Wentz and Lawrence when both were with Pederson, pegged to career start number. The line for Wentz begins at career start No. 1, while the line for Lawrence begins at career start No. 18. There’s nothing definitive here, but this could be worth revisiting as the 2024 season progresses.
Pederson benched Wentz late in their fifth and final season together. Lawrence remains early in his fourth NFL season and third with Pederson. His five-year contract extension begins in 2026. He’s likely going to be in Jacksonville for years to come, no matter who is coaching.
Nine consecutive defeats for Lawrence
Lawrence’s current nine-game losing streak as a starter moves him one away from matching Carson Palmer (2010) and Jared Goff (2020-21) for the longest such streaks since 2000 for quarterbacks drafted No. 1.
Ten would also match the Jaguars’ franchise record, held by Chad Henne and Blake Bortles.
Darnold has been there before, once losing nine straight with the Jets. But his recent team and individual production far outpaces that of Lawrence, as the table below shows.
Darnold and Lawrence, last 9 starts
| QB | Darnold | Lawrence |
|---|---|---|
|
W-L |
6-3 (.667) |
0-9 (.000) |
|
Cmp % |
63.8% |
58.9% |
|
Yds/att |
8.6 |
6.3 |
|
TD-INT |
17-6 |
13-8 |
|
Rating |
105.1 |
80.7 |
|
Sack % |
8.4% |
6.5% |
|
Explosive pass % |
21.4% |
13.7% |
|
Rush TD |
2 |
1 |
|
Avg air yds |
8.5 |
10.1 |
|
Fumbles (lost) |
11 (4) |
7 (3) |
|
Passes dropped (%) |
5 (2.2%) |
17 (5.4%) |
|
EPA/pass play |
+0.16 |
-0.08 |
The decision to extend Lawrence’s contract at such an expensive price does not stand alone among choices inviting scrutiny for Jacksonville. They used the first pick in the 2022 draft for Travon Walker instead of Aidan Hutchinson. Bigger-picture defensive changes also stand out.
Last season, the Jaguars ranked 23rd on offense and 11th on defense as measured by EPA per play. They fired defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell and seven defensive assistants.
The offense ranks about the same this season (24th), but the defense ranks much worse (30th) while transitioning to a new style. Under coordinator Ryan Nielsen, Jacksonville is playing man coverage at the second-highest rate (42 percent) after having the third-lowest rate (15 percent) last season.
Darnold, backed by the NFL’s top-ranked defense by EPA per play, has attempted only two passes while trailing this season. The Jaguars’ record and Lawrence’s role in it would likely be footnotes if Jacksonville were getting that kind of production from its defense this season.
The defensive changes could still pay off. Lawrence and the offense could still hit stride.
The Jaguars were close to breaking open their season-opening game at Miami, but running back Travis Etienne fumbled as he neared the goal line. The Dolphins scored an 80-yard touchdown two plays later. Jacksonville led Houston 20-17 late in the third quarter when Tank Bigsby’s 58-yard run gave the Jaguars first-and-goal from the 4. Jacksonville turned over the ball on downs.
The 24-20 defeat to Houston dropped the Jaguars to 1-4 since the start of last season in games decided by four or fewer points. Such things tend to even out. The evening out cannot happen fast enough for a team set to induct its only winning coach, Tom Coughlin, into its Ring of Honor in Week 5.
(Photo of Trevor Lawrence, right, and Doug Pederson: Bryan Bennett / Getty Images)
Free, daily NFL updates direct to your inbox.
Free, daily NFL updates direct to your inbox.
Sign Up
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
Two Iowans sentenced to prison for creating child pornography
Will Flory Bidunga Return to Kansas, Enter the NBA Draft, or Transfer?
Kentucky among Southeastern states receiving FEMA disaster recovery funding
Guest Column: Louisiana can only win with a stronger workforce
Ski Maine, Where Skiing’s Main Street Ends
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Video: Will ICE Change Under Its New Leader?
DHS shutdown breakthrough comes at cost for Republicans as funding fights nears end
Rubio joins crucial G7 talks as Iran war set to dominate second day
A surprise resignation could open the door for an independent to win a Montana Senate seat
Video: Savannah Guthrie Says She Believes Her Mother Was Taken for Ransom
-
Detroit, MI1 week agoDrummer Brian Pastoria, longtime Detroit music advocate, dies at 68
-
Science1 week agoHow a Melting Glacier in Antarctica Could Affect Tens of Millions Around the Globe
-
Movie Reviews1 week ago‘Youth’ Twitter review: Ken Karunaas impresses audiences; Suraj Venjaramoodu adds charm; music wins praise | – The Times of India
-
Science1 week agoI had to man up and get a mammogram
-
Sports6 days agoIOC addresses execution of 19-year-old Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
-
New Mexico5 days agoClovis shooting leaves one dead, four injured
-
Business1 week agoDisney’s new CEO says his focus is on storytelling and creativity
-
Texas1 week agoHow to buy Houston vs. Texas A&M 2026 March Madness tickets