Jaguars believe they're poised for sustained success

Jun. 23—For the first time since 2018, the Jacksonville Jaguars enter a season as defending AFC South champions.

But the franchise believes this run of success will be far longer sustained than the last. That 2018 team slumped to a 5-11 finish and began a string of four consecutive last-place finishes prior to last year's Cinderella run.

The Jaguars won their final five games in 2022 — and six of their last seven — to chase down the Tennessee Titans and end their two-year reign atop the division. And they believe they're just getting started.

"The vibe I get (from the owner's meetings) is I believe we've cracked the code," Jacksonville owner Shad Khan told the team's website in April. "We have a great head coach, we have a great general manager and we have a great quarterback. That's the trifecta for success in the NFL."

Head coach Doug Pederson burnished his already impressive resume with a worst-to-first turnaround during his first season with the Jaguars.

Pederson — who led the Philadelphia Eagles to their first Super Bowl championship following the 2017 season — had quite a mess to clean up in the wake of the one-year tenure of former head coach Urban Meyer.

But, once he unlocked the franchise's most valuable piece, things began to take off.

Quarterback Trevor Lawrence — the No. 1 overall pick in 2021 — looked like the superstar he was projected to be coming out of Clemson during last year's stretch run. In the final seven regular-season games, Lawrence completed 67.8% of his passes for 1,779 yards with 12 touchdowns, two interceptions and a 103.4 rating.

And he might be even better in 2023.

"I would say I'm more comfortable in just our system and different ins and outs of it, the details," Lawrence told the team's website earlier this month. "Obviously, last year's offseason was a little bit different — new staff, a lot of new players, a new offense, new defense ... everything is just new. That's how the last couple years have been for me.

"So it's nice to have some carry over, some consistency. Just to have our core intact and to add a few pieces here and there and to be able to build on what we did last year ... we just started so much further ahead of where we were this time last year."

Among the biggest new pieces is wide receiver Calvin Ridley.

Suspended for all of last season after running afoul of the NFL's gambling policy, the former Alabama star arrived in a November trade from the Atlanta Falcons.

Ridley will give Lawrence a true No. 1 target if he can return to his form of 2020 when he hauled in 90 passes for 1,374 yards and nine touchdowns. But he's played just five games over the past two years because of injuries and the suspension.

The Jaguars have taken the rust into account and are slowly transitioning the 28-year-old receiver into the mix.

"I only really know one speed, but I got to gradually get my body back to football, like football and be peaking into the season, not out here (in OTAs)," Ridley told ESPN in May. "Of course, I expected I would be a little rusty because you can't really get ready for this. I mean the heat, the helmet — just running every day is what it really is because you get sore. I've got to make sure I build and not be sore in the season."

Defensively, the Jaguars need to shore up against the pass.

Jacksonville ranked 28th in the NFL last year in passing yards allowed, and no player recorded a double-digit sack total.

But improvement will have to come from within after the Jaguars failed to make a major defensive move in the draft or free agency.

That concern aside, the future is bright for the franchise.

Jacksonville appears to be the class of the AFC South and will look to make a deeper postseason run after reaching the divisional round a year ago.

The key, Khan believes, is the culture created by Pederson.

"The players believed in each other," Khan told the team website. "They believed in the coaches, and they believed they were destined to win."