Kurt Warner: What NFL Teams Can Learn from Trevor Lawrence/Bryce Young’s Rise

Trevor Lawrence told Kurt Warner something in a production meeting last year that Warner still can't quite get over. A coach had finally taught him how to connect his feet to his routes. For the first time.

"I was like, hold on a second," Warner told Rich. "This is the first time in your life as a quarterback where a coach has said, your footwork should be this because it connects to the timing of that? I couldn't believe it."

Warner sees that conversation all over the Jaguars' tape now. Rich set it up: Jacksonville just beat Cincinnati after eviscerating New England and Cleveland to start the season, and Lawrence "looks like a different quarterback, like totally remade."

Warner's explanation goes back to the difference between quarterbacks raised under center and those raised in the shotgun. When you take a three-step drop, it connects to a certain depth of route. A five-step drop connects to another. You learn the mental timing. "These guys that have lived in the shotgun world forever don't ever develop that mental timing, because there's not a true correlation between snap and throw," Warner said.

That's what changed for Lawrence. "We've always known that he's had all the physical ability in the world," Warner said. Now that ability is connected to the concepts he and Coach Coen are running. "He's truly lining up his feet to throws, and he's confident to rip throws when he sees it."

And Warner wanted to make sure the offense didn't get all the credit. "Their defense is probably even better than their offense, and it has been better than their offense this year. This team is without a doubt a contender." Rich added that the Jaguars now exude their coach's personality.

**The best tape of the week**

Rich always asks Warner who looked best on film the previous week, and this time he took a stab at the answer: the quarterback they saw in Munich a few years back, fresh off his benching in Carolina. Bryce Young.

Warner agreed, with a caveat that it wasn't a stellar week of quarterback play across the board. He'd even posted the question on Twitter: if you had to do it all over again, Stroud or Bryce Young, who are you taking?

"A couple years ago, Bryce really got dragged over the coals, and people talking about him being a bust," Warner said. "It has been fun to watch his ascension, his confidence, all those things you saw in college that to me made him the number one overall pick. You're starting to see it again at the NFL level."

He's not a finished product, Warner said, but Young has sustained it for four weeks, making "play after play after play, and big plays." And Tetairoa McMillan "has really become one of those dudes as well, and become his guy."

**The lesson for everyone else**

For Warner, the bigger point is about how the league handles young quarterbacks, which he says it doesn't necessarily do a great job of. Carolina stayed patient. It let Young grow, took him through a benching, and let him learn from different situations. Now he keeps climbing the charts.

"Just another cautionary story to all these teams out there," Warner said, "that a guy doesn't play well early, we think he should be a finished product, that maybe pump the brakes a little bit. Maybe it's going to take a little time to become Sam Darnold, and to become this version of Bryce Young."

That's what Warner loves about these stories. "It opens up our minds to the possibilities with different guys," he said, "and that everybody doesn't have to come in and be that guy right away. You can take some time and still become a really good quarterback in this league."