Lawrence eyes return, but not ruling out surgery

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Trevor Lawrence isn’t ruling out having surgery on his sprained left shoulder before the season ends, but the Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback also is adamant that he wants to get back on the field as soon as possible.

It looks like the latter could happen on Sunday against the Houston Texans at EverBank Stadium if the rest of the week goes well in Lawrence’s return to practice.

“I think [the sprained AC joint] has been a pretty difficult thing to gauge, honestly, of what’s the best path forward,” Lawrence said Wednesday. “[Surgery is] definitely something that I’m considering and not off the table at all. It’s something that we’re going to have to just [approach] truly day by day, week by week.

“Hopefully I’m able to get back out there this week or as soon as possible and then it’s going to be just every week kind of evaluating it, seeing where it’s at. Obviously up until this point I’ve been doing everything I can to avoid that and want to be back out there with my guys and finish the season. So that’s my goal.”

Lawrence suffered the injury in the first half of the Jaguars’ loss at Philadelphia on Nov. 3 but didn’t miss a snap and almost led Jacksonville to a come-from-behind victory until throwing an end zone interception with 1:38 remaining.

Lawrence missed the Jaguars’ last two games. Behind backup quarterback Mac Jones the Jaguars managed just a combined 313 yards and scored 13 combined points in losses to Minnesota and Detroit.

Lawrence returned to the practice Monday for the first time since Nov. 8, and head coach Doug Pederson said Wednesday that Lawrence’s shoulder responded well.

Lawrence was going to get the majority of the first-team reps during Wednesday’s afternoon practice, and Pederson called that an encouraging sign for Lawrence to play against the Texans.

“Obviously I’m not going to commit, but it was a good start to the week,” Pederson said.

Lawrence, who has completed 61.3% of his passes for 2,004 yards and 11 touchdowns with six interceptions, said his shoulder feels the best it has since the injury but he wants to see how he feels later in the week before making his case to play.

“I’m preparing to play and I’m preparing like I normally would to play a full game and to go so that if that happens, or when that happens, I’m ready to go,” Lawrence said. “But also if that’s not going to happen, you want to make sure that if Mac’s going to play he gets some reps and is prepared as well.

“I think there’s a lot of things to consider, but definitely I’m going to factor in every day and kind see how I feel and obviously talk to our staff and see how it’s progressing. But I feel the best I felt in the past few weeks.”