Jacksonville Jaguars-31, Houston Texans-3
Q. (Off microphone)
TREVOR LAWRENCE: It was a big win for us, obviously, with a lot of the distractions kind of around this week and knowing what's in store now for this next week.
I thought we handled our business today. That was the plan to come in here, start fast, and control the game, and I thought we did that offensively.
A lot of stuff to clean up. Didn't play our cleanest ball today, but the defense played great, and special teams was awesome, so kind of made up for it. We had some huge plays on offense, so good enough to win.
Obviously it's not our cleanest game we've had, but at this point of the year it's just about winning. Obviously we're happy with that. And to be able to win that way, you know, it shows the growth of this team when you don't necessarily play your best, especially offensively, you can still dominate a game like that. So it's cool to see our team continue to come together, and we all know what is kind of at hand this week, so we're excited for the challenge and ready to get back to work for that.
Q. How much does it help you personally having played in such huge games at Clemson getting ready for a game like this that's for the AFC South title?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: You know, I think guys have played in games like this, all different guys on our team. Different places maybe, maybe here years past, whatever it is.
So the biggest thing is you can't treat it differently than any other game. You can't try to do more or less. You just have to trust your process and what got us here, you know, and I think we've gotten in a pretty good groove of just the way we prepare, the way we get ready for these games. You see it's been paying off for us the past month and a half, so we just have to trust that.
You can't try to do a bunch of things new just because you're in a position where it's a must-win to get in. You know, for us it's the same as any other game. That's kind of been our mindset the past two months, so for us we just have to continue to do what we've been doing, prepare the same way, have a great week of prep, and put ourselves in position to win on Sunday or whenever, whenever the game is going to be.
Q. What did you see on Etienne's touchdown run?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: Just him running. No, actually Zay had a great block. The safety filled the lane, and Zay got just enough of him, got his shoulder and kind of knocked him out of the hole. I mean, I don't think Travis had to even cut. He broke that one tackle on the second level from the safety, and he was gone.
So, you know, we headed that play up pretty good, and Zay and Christian specifically did a really good job on the perimeter making that thing go.
Q. You say you just treat it as the next game, but isn't there a little part of you that goes, holy cow, this is it, this is our lives for the season? How do you not let that creep in or become an issue?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: Yeah. You look at the situation we put ourselves in. That's kind of been honestly the feeling every week for us is just -- because if we didn't win -- what, today was four in a row. If we didn't win these games, we wouldn't be in a position to do this next week.
So for us that pressure or whatever you want to call it has been there, and we've responded great to it. And now that this moment -- you know, we talked a lot about a few weeks ago, this season is going to come down to Week 18. We knew we had to take care of business these prior weeks, but we had a feeling we're going to put ourselves in position to where Week 18 is going to decide our playoff berth and where we head after that.
So we've been expecting this, and we're ready for it. And I think, like I said, you can't treat it -- you know it's a big game because, you're right, it is for our season and to earn the right to keep playing, but it's still a game. It's still played the same way. It's still the same length of time. All that stuff, it's the same game. You can't freak out and make it bigger than it is. You have to stick to what you know and your process.
Q. Someone already asked it, but we ask you every week about snapping another streak for this franchise this year. This is nine in a row, the Texans. You got that going.
TREVOR LAWRENCE: Feels good. There's a lot of guys in the locker room that have been a part of that. I've been a part of three of them. It feels good to get this one obviously.
It's hard to win in this league, so you appreciate all of them. Especially a division game where you haven't beat this team in a while. It feels really good especially to do it at their place.
This one is going to be short-lived for us. We know we have a big week in front of us. Yeah, it feels great to get the win today.
Q. Knowing the kind of defense they are and the way they play, how big was getting a touchdown the first drive?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: You know, their defense has played really great all year. Just really disciplined, well-coached. They do what they do, and they do it well. They're physical too.
So we knew starting fast would be big for us. It's something that we weren't able to do when we played them earlier in the season, so to be able to jump out of that lead early and then our defense just be able to pin their ears back and get after them really the whole game I think put us in a good position.
Like I talked about, though, before just not playing our best on offense, we had a couple of opportunities to add on to that even earlier, and we stalled out and had some miscommunication, some stuff like that, early on that we need to clean up.
Other than that, and I thought the first drive of the third quarter was really good for all of us just to be clean, to go all the way down the field to score there and to finish kind of the right way. Obviously a lot of the guys still played after that, but for me I wanted to really have a clean drive because I didn't think we executed very clean in the first half for the majority of the time.
Q. How much pride do you take in Christian getting 1,000 yards receiving?
TREVOR LAWRENCE: It's awesome. I told him after the game -- or middle of the game when I realized. I was, like, Shoot, congrats, man.
He has earned it. He has worked super hard, and obviously that's a big part of our offense is 1,000 yards. It's a lot of production from him. Just to see him have success and just the amount of work he has put in and the work that we've put in together and to see how it's paid off and just the connection, the chemistry that we have, it's been really cool. Just happy for him. So keep building on it.
Thank you all.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports