Few players come into the NFL with as much hype as former Clemson Tigers quarterback Trevor Lawrence did. Quarterbacks get hyped up every NFL Draft cycle, but it was on a whole different level when it came to Lawrence. The talented quarterback was drawing comparisons to Andrew Luck and John Elway as the best quarterback prospect to ever come out of the college ranks.
Jacksonville gladly took him with the first overall selection in the 2021 NFL Draft, believing that they had found their quarterback of the future. The one that was going to lead them back to playoff success and was going to put up video game-like numbers while doing so. So far in his career, you can make the case that the Jaguars have mostly gotten what they expected from Lawrence, but just in a more muted fashion.
Still, the Jaguars seem to be sold on Lawrence as their quarterback of the future, and gave him a massive extension in the offseason that pays him like one of the top quarterbacks in the league. It’s that deal, combined with the lack of playoff success, that has earned Lawrence a spot among the most polarizing players in the NFL according to Brad Gagnon, NFL analyst for Bleacher Report.
Gagnon recently released his top 10 most polarizing players heading into the 2024 season, and the Jaguars quarterback makes the top 5 of this dubious list, coming in at number 4. That’s likely due to the fact that Lawrence’s contract extension makes him the second-highest paid quarterback in the league by total contract value (tied with Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow) and the top-paid quarterback (tied with Burrow and Green Bay’s Jordan Love) in terms of average per year.
That is a lot of money for a quarterback who is heading into his fourth year in the league and has yet to finish a season with a record better than 9-8. Some would blame the supporting cast around Lawrence for the Jaguars’ failures during his tenure. Others would say that a quarterback of Lawrence’s status needs to be able to elevate the talent around him and make it work anyways. And that dichotomy exemplifies why Lawrence ranks so highly on this list.