Trevor Lawrence doesn’t need the spotlight in Baltimore to make noise in the MVP race. He can do plenty of damage Sunday against the Colts, and the setup is pretty simple: win the game, and throw touchdowns while doing it.
That’s the opening Lawrence has coming out of the bye week. Jacksonville can move to 5-2 with a victory, then turn around and head into a primetime matchup with Lamar Jackson and the Ravens four days later.
If the Jaguars keep stacking wins, they could be 6-2 in short order. But the first step is Indianapolis, and Lawrence looks like the biggest beneficiary if Jacksonville handles business.
The matchup may come down to one question: will the Colts blitz him? Indianapolis hasn’t been a heavy pressure team this season, ranking 28th in blitz rate at 23.5% of dropbacks. That said, the Colts were much more aggressive in 2025, when they finished 10th in blitz rate, and their two highest-blitz game plans came in their two games against Lawrence and the Jaguars.
Even then, Lawrence made them pay. Indianapolis and defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo have mostly leaned on four-man pressure, but injuries in the secondary and the loss of DeForest Buckner could push them toward a more aggressive plan. That’s the kind of wrinkle Coen is preparing for.
"It's more just, okay, how do Lou and those guys want to either protect or attack in a lot of ways? Are they going to play it a little bit more safe and sound and let those guys go play football and play coverage and be able to do those things?
Or is it like, we're going to heat you up and here we go? We're going to apply the pressure regardless of who's in, put our guys in the back end in some difficult spots, but hey, we're just going to go attack," Jaguars head coach Liam Coen said Friday.
"I think it'll probably end up being a balance of both of those things, just knowing some of the personality of those guys and what they want to get done on defense. It can create some challenge because you're like, all right, you're trying to create matchups and get the best matchups when you're not exactly sure who's going to be in there."
However the Colts choose to play it, Lawrence has a track record of making them uncomfortable. One of his best outings against Indianapolis came in Week 14 of the Jaguars’ 36-19 win, a game that helped Jacksonville seize control of the AFC South.
The numbers this season point in the same direction. According to NextGenStats, Lawrence has a 119.1 passer rating when not blitzed, the best mark among qualified passers, and he’s tied for the league lead with 11 touchdown passes in those situations. He has also been pressured on just 27.4% of his dropbacks without a blitz, the fifth-lowest rate among qualified quarterbacks.
That matters because the Colts have barely generated any heat at all. Their 24.4% pressure rate is the lowest in the NFL, and it’s the lowest by any defense in a season since at least 2018. Their 58 pressures are also the fewest in the league, and they’re the only defense with fewer than 60.
When Lawrence has hit rough patches in the Coen era, pressure has usually been the trigger. His two worst EPA/Dropback performances this season came in Weeks 5 and 2, and those were also the two games in which he faced his highest pressure rates. The pattern showed up in 2025, too: when Jacksonville kept him clean, he carved up defenses.
That’s why this game feels like a real launching point for the Jaguars over the next 11 weeks. A win would keep them moving toward a high seed in the AFC, and Lawrence’s MVP case would only get louder. He already sits seventh in EPA/Play and 10th in success rate among quarterbacks, production that fits the profile of a passer leading a scoring offense that wins more often than it loses.
If Sunday turns into a three- or four-touchdown afternoon at home, the details around the Colts won’t matter much. What people will notice is that Lawrence is still rolling, and that he’s doing it right before the Ravens come to town.
In Other News...
Jaguars May Have Found A Rookie Starter Fans Can't Ignore
The Jaguars have gotten an immediate return from Emmanuel Pregnon, and that is not something every rookie lineman can say this deep into a season. A third-round pick out of Oregon, Pregnon has stepped straight into the left guard job and started all six games, handling 382 offensive snaps while keeping the pocket clean enough to avoid surrendering a sack.
Sports Illustrateds Justin Melo recently ranked Pregnon as the top third-round rookie, a nod to how quickly he has settled in and how steady he has looked for Jacksonville. There have been some pressures and penalties along the way, but the overall picture is of a player who arrived with first-team All-American credentials and has already made himself hard to take off the field. [Read more 🡒]
Jonathan Taylor Just Put Jaguars Colts Week Into A Different Light
The Colts week against Jacksonville has taken on a far different feel with Jonathan Taylors status hanging over it. Indianapolis is still weighing whether to put its star running back on the field while trade talks continue, and the timing matters because any game-day decision now carries both competitive and business implications for a player the market reportedly values at a second-round pick or better.
For the Jaguars, it adds another layer to a division matchup that was already going to draw attention. If Taylor is active, the Colts have to balance the chance of helping themselves on the field against the risk of something going wrong before a deal gets done, and if he sits, it only sharpens the sense that this game is being shaped by more than just the standings. [Read more 🡒]
Jaguars Trade Deadline Search Just Got More Complicated Up Front
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With Payne now off the board, the market for defensive tackles only gets thinner, which leaves the Jaguars weighing a handful of other speculative possibilities. Moro Ojomo, Vita Vea, DaVon Hamilton, Zach Sieler and Roy Lopez have all come up as names to watch, but there is no clear answer yet on which direction Jacksonville might take, or whether it can find the kind of interior upgrade it is clearly exploring. [Read more 🡒]