“Part of it is, OK, it’s not the staff that drafted me; it’s a new GM, new regime, new coaches, new everything, so it wasn’t all the way unexpected,” Lloyd admitted. “But at the same time, it was just extra fuel, extra motivation, like, OK, we see how it is now.

“There was some anticipation leading up to it because, obviously, I came in with Travon, and his fifth-year option was picked up relatively quickly within the first week or two. They said they were going to give it some more time, still learning the player. And at that point, I was like, OK, it’s probably not going to get picked up, so over time, you start to see, and you get to know the coaches and everything. Not that there was any tension or anything, at the end of the day, it’s a business decision on their end. For me, never making it personal, understanding that it is a business, and just handling that the right way was the most important thing.”

And he did just that, throughout the year, from the first day of the offseason program.

“I felt really good going into OTAs based off of how I attacked the offseason, so I knew I was already a way better player from the year prior,” Lloyd said. “In OTAs, I was still learning defense, but I felt really good physically and mentally as well, so I knew I was a different player.

“It was more so, OK, now I’m translating this to the with pads on. And over time, I felt really good. During training camp, getting the pads on, running around, playing violent, I mean, it was pretty immediate for me. I think the results obviously showed relatively quickly as well. I felt a big difference, honestly, pretty quick.”

The difference was most evident in Week 5 on Monday Night Football, when he picked off Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and took it back 99 yards for a touchdown. The opponent made it special, but the fact that it also led to a 31-28 win that pushed the Jaguars to a surprising 4-1 start made it more significant.

Lloyd said breaking on the ball was a matter of “muscle memory,” repping a specific call enough times that his reactions were automatic. And after that, his only thought was to get as far as possible,

“It was just one of those plays where you’ve run it so many times in practice,” Lloyd said. “We hadn’t run in a game. So, the first time you run in a game, you don’t even think about the execution part of it. It’s more, OK, focusing on the ball, looking it in, and then when you do have the ball, finding a way to get in the end zone, get some extra yardage, however it looks.

“For me, it was just more so, big play on a big stage, in the regular season against a future Hall of Fame quarterback and the team that went to the Super Bowl five of the last six years, so it was a big play. The only thing I was thinking about that whole game was winning the game, just executing my job, and finding a way to come out on top.”