5 Observations on the Jaguars' 23-13 Preseason Loss to the Browns: Starting Units Struggle in Meyer's Debut

The wait has now come and gone. The anticipation has ended. The Jacksonville Jaguars are back on the field and Urban Meyer and Trevor Lawrence have officially made their debuts.

Meyer and Lawrence -- two men who rarely lost in the college ranks -- quickly experienced the difference at the NFL level, though, as the Jaguars fell to the Cleveland Browns in a 23-13 bout that saw the Jaguars play a sloppy first-half of football.

So, what stood out to us during the game? Who impressed, what was concerning, and what does it all mean moving forward? We break it all down below.

Jaguars can't feel too encouraged over the performance of starting units against mostly backups

It is only the preseason. This is as true today as it was before yesterday's game began. With that in mind, the Jaguars should feel slightly discouraged by some of the things they saw on Saturday, even if the result was unofficial and the game plan was vanilla. The Jaguars didn't sit any healthy starters on either side of the ball, a stark contrast from a Browns team that sat nearly all 22 starters. And despite the Jaguars' first-team offense and defense each getting a crack at the Browns' backups, the Jaguars' top units still failed to score a single point, record a sack or force a turnover.

"Yeah, disappointed with the offense, 85 yards first half, and it was a classic how-not-to-play-field position," Meyer said after the game. "Guys gave great effort on the kickoff return and knock it out 60 yards and it goes back to the 10- yard line, just classic how not—so a teachable moment. And then that was one of our good players, I think it was Wingard. And then the 4th and 1, real disappointing. I thought our defense hung in there. We gave up a lot of yards passing, but did good against the run."

'Trevor [Lawrence], I believe, was 6 of 9, but we gave up two sacks, I believe, with the No. 1 offense, which we shouldn't do. ... But just disappointed offensively. I don't like slow offenses, and I told those—I thought the third quarter was better with just tempo, getting up the line of scrimmage, snap the ball. I don't want to be one of those slow, wallowing offenses, and we'll go and get that fixed."

If one was to think Meyer was disappointed with his team's performance -- especially the starters -- they would be underselling it. Meyer didn't mince words when talking about how much the Jaguars need to improve or how badly they struggled at points. Considering these struggles happened against all backups, the Jaguars' staff should have a bit of a fire lit under them. That isn't to say any long-term conclusions should be made, but rest assured Meyer and the Jaguars' staff know that Saturday wasn't a game to be overly enthused about.

CJ Henderson has the most positive performance of the game

The Jaguars can't help but feel satisfied with what they saw from 2020 first-round pick CJ Henderson on Saturday. While Keenum had success throwing against the Jaguars' first-team defense, Henderson was a true bright spot for the Jaguars' defense otherwise, making several big plays in coverage. According to PFF, Henderson was targeted four times in his 20 coverage snaps, but he allowed just two catches for 15 yards. He also recorded two pass breakups, giving him a passer rating allowed of only 59.4, the best on the entire Jaguars' defense on Saturday.

"Yeah, I saw him make a couple plays out there tonight. I just like the fact he's getting back into game shape," Urban Meyer said about Henderson following the game. "I'm not sure how many plays he had, but that COVID knocked the teeth out of him, and then he came back and started practicing good. So, we've just got to get him revved up to game speed and game shape. "

Considering Henderson has practiced just four times in all of training camp -- with one of those practices being Thursday's walkthrough -- his performance on Saturday was immensely positive. Henderson is the Jaguars' best athlete in the secondary and the former No. 9 overall pick has the talent to be the best cornerback on the entire roster as long as he can stay on the field and progress. Saturday was a small, but important, step toward that.

Saturday made it even tougher to justify Tebow's roster spot

Tim Tebow has always been a longshot to make the Jaguars' roster. That is always going to be the case when you are a reserve player on a 90-man roster that will soon be reduced to just 53 players. But if Tebow was a longshot after 13 practices in camp, Saturday's game should have reduced his chances even more. Simply put, his performance and usage on Saturday make it tough to continue to justify him having a spot on the roster.

Tebow played 16 offensive snaps on Saturday but his lone target was a near interception after it was deflected off his hands. Otherwise, Tebow didn't make any apperances in the passing game other than getting a potential target taken by Tavon Austin. And as a blocker, Tebow was below-average (with one notable lowlight), with PFF giving him the team's worst run-blocking grade of the entire offense.