Fred Taylor heaps praise on Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence

Jacksonville Jaguars legend Fred Taylor is feeling pretty good lately about the direction of his former team, especially with quarterback Trevor Lawrence under center.

Joining the Pat McAfee Show this week, Taylor laid out the reasons why he believes the Jaguars are in the position to make another playoff run this season.

“Trevor’s amazing,” Taylor said. “He’s an amazing person, amazing character, amazing player. He’s always won, on every level. This is who Trevor Lawrence is, go back to that San Diego (Chargers) game. Four interceptions, didn’t flinch. He kept slinging it, kept slinging in. They fought back and won the game. They went up to fight a beast in Kansas City on their field in the divisional round. Fell short but he kept slinging it.

“You want a person who’s not going to back down. You want a leader. That’s exactly who he is. He’s got a perfect relationship with Doug (Pederson). The guys that are around him from Zay (Jones) to Christian Kirk, now with Calvin Ridley, Evan Engram, and Travis Etienne. Those guys can get it done.”

In his second season in the league last year, Lawrence helped the Jaguars break their playoff drought, and then some. The former Clemson Tiger threw for 4,113 yards with 25 touchdowns and eight interceptions on 66.3% passing. His performance earned him the first Pro Bowl appearance of his career.

Trevor Lawrence breaks down Jags’ expectations

Now the favorite to win the AFC South for the second consecutive season, the Jaguars have very lofty expectations. Trevor Lawrence knows the hard work must continue if the Jaguars are going to live up to them

“Yeah, obviously the better you play, the more success you have, the more expectations you’re going to have,” Lawrence told Sara Walsh of NFL Network Saturday. “That’s the position you want to be in, so that’s a good thing, but you also have to work the same way, you have to treat everything the same way as it was when there weren’t any expectations, when people didn’t expect much of us, when no one expected us to win those games and we wanted to prove everybody wrong. You have to keep that chip on your shoulder and also we just have to keep our circle tight.

“It’s about the people in this building, my teammates, the coaches, it’s not really about the outside opinions, good or bad. At the end of the day you’ve got to go play on Sunday, and I think that’s the mindset that helped us get here, and to take that next step we’ve got to keep that, keep it tight.”

After winning their first preseason game versus the Cowboys, the Jags continue on with another road game versus the Detroit Lions this weekend.