Trevor Lawrence has a pass completion prop of 21.5 heading into week 2 against the Broncos. That’s a really interesting number given all of the variables we have to take into consideration and we learned through one game. First of all, we know that the Jaguars are significant underdogs at home vs. the Denver Broncos.
This is mainly due to the faith we have in the Broncos overall roster and the lack of faith we have in the Jaguars as a football team after they got trounced by the lowly Texans. Of course, Houston, a lot of analysts thought, could be the worst NFL team in the past five years.
The Broncos’ Defense
The Broncos’ defense is extremely good with offseason upgrades at all three levels. That holds particularly true when we talk about the depth and their defensive back play. The Broncos have always relied on elite cornerback play to keep their defense at the top of the league, and this had fallen off a bit until now.
I think that this unit is clearly better than last season, and it is what has me most concerned about the over in this bet. Their corners should be able to hang around guys like Marvin Jones and DJ Chark, who don’t pop as elite athletes that create space at a great rate. Even Laviska Shenault isn’t some elite separator with route running.
Jaguars Week 1 Hints
The key here is how the Jaguars will call their game if they get down again and how they will adjust to their game plan from last week. Last week Trevor completed 28 passes, and this was due to the game script.
The Jaguars got down significantly in the game and really just let Lawrence throw the ball all over to gain experience and to try to reinsert themselves back into the game. The bigger concern is that the Jaguars did this by throwing down the field a lot, which is great for yardage and fantasy points, but I’d prefer seven-yard outs to Laviska if I were looking for completions.
The Jaguars’ outside receivers are nothing to write home about, but they will run a ton of deep routes and stretch the field enough to give Trevor good looks at some point in the play. I hope we see Laviska more involved in catch-up this week, but it isn’t like he has to be for this bet to hit the over. If he is heavily involved in the second half, I’d be shocked to see this bet lose.
The Prediction: Lawrence Goes Over
That being said, the Jags will likely be trailing in this game, and we saw them really lean into the pass when that became the case. Even though those passes weren’t exactly a high percentage, they were passes that could have easily been turned into quick passes by a different defensive scheme or game plan.
Last week Daniel Jones completed 22 passes with a bad offensive line and only 37 attempts. This shows me that even if things didn’t go great, we can definitely see the overhit here in a bad game for Trevor and the offense as a whole. I love the over on this number, assuming that we get something like 40-45 pass attempts this week out of Lawrence.
