The Jaguars hired Doug Pederson to acquire and develop QB Trevor Lawrence. Neither happens. [Video]

Almost three years ago, it seemed like a perfect fit. The Jacksonville Jaguars had a near-mutiny under head coach Urban Meyer, quarterback Trevor Lawrence looked like a mess, and the franchise was headed for another season of double-digit losses. During the time that Shad Khan owned the team, there was a sense that a rare opportunity with a next-generation quarterback was in jeopardy.

In response, Khan hired Doug Pederson and then explained the decision to the outside world.

“Why Doug Pederson? “He is a man who has accomplished a lot,” Khan said in February 2022, sitting next to Pederson during his inaugural press conference. “Top offensive coordinator, experienced head coach, won three division titles in five years – a guy who won the Super Bowl just four years ago. And he did it for the Philadelphia Eagles, a city very similar to Jacksonville that was seeking its first championship. So in the end we have someone who was there. A head coach, developer of quarterbacks. A man who creates a culture for players and coaches alike. A culture in which they can thrive and a leader who commands respect and inspires those around him. And a man who wins.”

Imagine Khan’s dismay on Sunday after watching his Jaguars lose an agonizing game, 24-20, to a Houston Texans team that was following exactly the course the Jaguars had charted when Pederson led the team in got his hands. By the third year of his term? Jacksonville should have been fighting for supremacy in the AFC and Lawrence should have made major strides toward becoming one of the league’s elite quarterbacks. Instead, time in Jacksonville is a flat circle and the Jaguars are stuck in Friedrich Nietzsche’s trench of eternal return.

This is just another way of saying that the Jaguars are what they were… and perhaps inevitably will become what they already were.

That’s what this 0-4 start feels like. Just the latest seasonal marathon of promised horizons running on a treadmill. As a familiar milestone fell through on Sunday, Pederson was asked if he was worried about his job status after the loss to the Texans.

“My status? No,” Pederson said, adding, “That’s a weird question, but okay.”

The fact that Pederson thinks this is a strange question is revealed by his own message from back in the 2022 media conference, when he took a moment during his introduction to send a message to his new team.

“To our players – and I think this is so important – to our players: My sole focus since I’ve been hired has been to really help them be their best and help our team win football games,” said Pederson. “And it’s our job as coaches to put our players in a position to be successful, to develop their talent player by player, unit by unit, and that’s how you win games in the National Football League.”

On Sunday, Pederson appeared to send a new message after he was asked if he would consider taking over the game management duties from offensive coordinator Press Taylor.

“For what? I thought he had a great game,” Pederson said of Taylor. “As coaches, we can’t go out and make the plays, right? It’s a one-way street. So, you can sit here and point fingers , whatever you want, and that’s fine. Direct it straight at me. I can take it.”

In reality, no one needs to point the finger at Pederson right now. The results do it for him. He has a 1-9 record in his last 10 games, with that win coming in 2023 against the league’s worst Carolina Panthers. Its offense has one of the worst third-down conversion rates in the league. And even though his franchise quarterback is finally healthy again, he’s hitting a career low of 53.2 percent of his passes in four games going back to his rookie season.

As of Monday, Lawrence has gone an inexplicable 309 days since winning a football game, an alarming number for a presumed generational quarterback who just signed a 5-year, $275 million extension. Especially when you focus on some of the throws he’s missing. Like the deep shot in the third quarter to a rushing Christian Kirk that had enough distance to have a clear path for a touchdown but not enough speed to catch up with the ball, so Lawrence sailed 4 yards over his head.

If the two most important factors in hiring Pederson were to continually acquire and develop his franchise quarterback, the results aren’t great. Taylor’s offense is one of the worst in the league. It ranks in the bottom third of total yards and passing yards. Lawrence is in the middle of this offense. That means if Pederson believes Taylor is predicting good games, someone else isn’t meeting that standard. And the first person in line to turn the key to an offense is the quarterback. And if the quarterback isn’t the problem, it’s the surrounding pieces of an offense that his general manager, Trent Baalke, built from the ground up. And if it’s not Press Taylor… not Trevor Lawrence… not Baalke’s squad… then who’s the problem with this operation?

Point the finger at Pederson’s direction. He’s the one who took responsibility for getting the thing on the rails, so the responsibility ultimately lies with him until he wants to clarify where the breakdown is happening. And not for nothing, but sources at the Philadelphia Eagles leaked the issues owner Jeffrey Lurie had with Taylor while he was on Pederson’s staff in Philadelphia. The Taylor dispute eventually became part of the Eagles and Pederson’s mutual split in 2021.

That’s not to say that Pederson shouldn’t be able to use his coaching staff as he sees fit. But it definitely shows how far he will go to defend Taylor’s reputation or his performance as one of his assistant coaches. Which should at least raise the question of whether Pederson can honestly evaluate the job Taylor is doing, or if he can scale back the play-calling duties that Pederson himself was proud of when he got the Jaguars job.

Regardless, the results are what they are. The Jaguars are stuck in a 0-4 hole that is essentially impossible to recover from in the NFL, and only the 1992 San Diego Chargers manage to reach the postseason after losing their first four games. Now compare that to the expectations of Khan, who not only hired Pederson to bring Lawrence along and win games, but who also stated before the season that expectations were now exceeded, with what he believed to be the best Jaguars squad, that he had ever seen.

Perhaps the only thing that sets the Jaguars apart is that Houston is a premier team in the AFC – perhaps even one of the best in the conference. And the Jaguars took it until the final minute of regulation time. If this is an indication that Jacksonville is on the verge of a breakthrough, then the schedule could present an opportunity. The Indianapolis Colts come to town next week amid their own problems. Star running back Jonathan Taylor is suffering from a severe ankle sprain, and quarterback Anthony Richardson was out Sunday with a hip injury and was replaced by 39-year-old (but very effective) Joe Flacco.

While this isn’t exactly a “real” opportunity, it’s the type of game the Jaguars should win at home. If they don’t, this 0-5 hole will look like the place where Pederson’s tenure will be buried.