Jacksonville leadership intentionally tanked the team during Gardner's second season so that they could get Trevor Lawrence. I'd say that's pretty bad. I'll forever root against discount Prince Charming because the Jags did that.
Philly was not as bad since everyone knew that he was likely never going to start there and his only purpose there was to be the backup to a more established player.
Yeah, Philly was all in on Hurts before GM arrived. He was cheap insurance.
Jacksonville gave away most of their best players on the way to getting Lawrence. Supposedly, GM pushed him pretty hard in practice for the starting job, but the only way a 3rd year 6th round pick is getting the nod over a brand new #1 pick is if the #1 is hurt or is massively outplayed. #1 picks don’t sit, even if they should.
Once they made the decision to start Lawrence, they
had to get rid of GM to avoid any hint of a QB controversy, so they sent him to Philly on the cheap.
Nobody has really given GM credit for putting up pretty solid numbers in Jacksonville even when surrounded by complete garbage. He put up 3K yards and had a good TD:INT ratio….but since they didn’t win, it doesn’t matter.
He played well in relief in 2021, but not so much in 2022. I don’t know for sure what the reason for the slump in 2022 was, but it’s not hard to see that Hurts and Minshew play the game with different styles, so that could have been part of the issue. Also possible he just wasn’t getting the reps in practice. Don’t know for sure, but it didn’t do him any favors at contract time. Didn’t help that this was a good qb draft.
He’s likely the backup again this year, but at least he’s getting a solid paycheck. And Richardson is not Lawrence, so there’s a little better chance that maybe he sees time.
