Feb. 27, 2026, 5:57 p.m. ET
Fans of the Jacksonville Jaguars will remember all too well just how bad the 2020 season was. It was the worst season in franchise history, and among the worst in NFL history to boot.
The Jaguars started off with a win, but quickly spiraled into chaos from there. Ultimately, the Jags ended 2020 with an embarrassing 1-15 record, leading both Dave Caldwell and Doug Marrone to be fired.
Now, DJ Chark is speaking about what it was like in the locker room during that season, and insinuating that the slide was intentional, with the goal of landing Trevor Lawrence at QB. Appearing on the “Raw Room” podcast, Chark delved into his third season in Jacksonville and just how chaotic it was.
“We was in a little bit of turmoil,” he said, and noted that for much of the season, they were constantly changing quarterbacks.
“We didn’t know who was going to really start until, like, Saturday,” he continued. “They’ll have different people splitting reps. It started off with Gardner [Minshew]; Gardner got hurt. And it was, they wanted to see Jake [Luton]. Then they wanted to see Mike [Glennon]. And then they were like, by the end of the year, it was like, well, whoever practiced better this week, we’ll determine.”
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For players like Chark, a wide receiver, that obviously made it incredibly difficult to prepare each week, not knowing who he would be working with until the last minute. And the constant changes likewise would have made it impossible to build any kind of chemistry with a quarterback.
“I caught touchdowns from three different QBs,” he said.
After the first win, the Jaguars didn’t have another the rest of the season, which at least kept them from a winless season, something that has only happened twice in modern-era NFL history.
Eventually, though, Chark said something changed, and the team was actively gunning to lose, seemingly with the goal of getting the first-round draft pick so they could land a Clemson QB who was being lauded as a generational talent: Trevor Lawrence.
“It was like, it really don’t matter who we played on Sunday at quarterback. We just gone,” he said. “We tanking for Trevor. That’s why they’re doing carousel quarterback. I didn’t know that at the time.”
And eventually, Chark said the team just gave up, too. “It went Minshew all the way into week nine. Then it’s two for Luton, Glennon for two, yeah, Minshew for two, Glennon for two,” he recalled, and added, “It’s not really about the plays. It was more so, like, by this time in the year, the morale was already down. We are just switching people in. Knowing what’s up.”
Of course, if the goal was to land Lawrence, the plan worked. Unfortunately for Caldwell and Marrone, they weren’t there to see it. By Lawrence’s second season, he led the Jaguars to their first division title since 2017, and was nominated to the Pro Bowl. And fans know just how well he played in 2025, under Liam Coen. But still, it had to have been difficult for players like Chark to live through such a disastrous season, even if the end result was a good one.