As Trevor Lawrence prepares for his fifth NFL season in 2025, the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback must again ready himself to learn a new offense in Duval.
Helping him in that process will be Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski, who is looking forward to ramping things up with Lawrence in tandem with Jacksonville's head coach and play-caller, Liam Coen.
"I'm beyond fired up to work with Trevor," Udinski said Thursday in his introductory news conference. "Like I said about Liam -- probably the same thing with Trevor -- I don't have enough words to explain how excited I am for the opportunity to work with him. The relationship side of it is something that takes time, not just me getting to know him but him getting to know me. This is a collaborative process. There are no dictatorships or anything like that in this business or on our team."
Udinski heads to Jacksonville as a first-time coordinator after he spent the last three seasons with the Minnesota Vikings, most recently as an assistant quarterbacks coach. Coen also recently hired his defensive coordinator in Anthony Campanile.
In 2024, Lawrence played a career-low 10 games as he dealt with a shoulder injury and suffered a concussion in Week 13 after taking an illegal hit from Houston Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair. Lawrence was placed on injured reserve and didn't play another game.
Lawrence earned his first and only Pro Bowl honor so far in 2022, under then-head coach Doug Pederson and offensive coordinator Press Taylor. In the process, he led the Jaguars to an epic postseason comeback over the Los Angeles Chargers before losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in the Divisional Round. However, Lawrence failed to keep progressing and the Jaguars have failed to reach the playoffs in each of the last two seasons.
Jacksonville hopes Udinski can be a part of turning around Lawrence's production under the new regime; Udinski says he's excited to have Lawrence under center.
"There's a lot that stands out. Once again, the physical talent you can see," Udinski said of Lawrence. "The most exciting thing for me is the guy and the person as I've started to form this relationship because, like I said, the quarterback position is still played by a person, it's still a human being back there who's gotta stand back there and navigate tight pockets and hits and escape and deal with 10 other guys in the huddle, all 11 on defense and make those decisions and snap judgments.
"The person that we're gonna deal with on a day-to-day basis is super exciting for me. If we're up here spending as much time as we do trying to pour ourselves into somebody, he's the kind of guy you want to invest time in."
Udinski and Lawrence will have plenty of time to work on their chemistry in the offseason, but for now Jacksonville can feel comfortable knowing its new OC is determined to fix a squad that went 4-13 in 2024.
