JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Jaguars are on the NFL draft clock and Trent Baalke likes the options.
Jacksonville’s general manager and head coach Doug Pederson know that they’ll get a solid player — potentially a Day 1 starter — when they hand in their draft card next week. Does that mean a trade up, a trade back or stay put on Thursday night in Detroit?
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“Again, you don’t know what’s going to happen, one through 16. You think you got an idea, you go in with a pretty good idea of what it looks like and what your options might be, whether that’s three or four players we’re looking at right now,” Baalke said Thursday. “We’re not there yet, we’ve still got a couple of days going through. Coach and I haven’t sat down and gone through the final board yet. We’ll do that on Monday. But we like how it’s shaping up and we’ve still got some work to do.”
The Jaguars have the 17th pick and several areas that they need to address. That’s one of eight selections Jacksonville enters the three-day event with, and no doubt, the most significant.
Jacksonville doesn’t have major holes across its roster, but it needs to come away with an impact starter at that position, something that’s been easier said than done in its 29-year history.
For every pick that it has hit on (Tony Boselli, Fred Taylor and Jalen Ramsey) it has too many whiffs to list (Luke Joeckel, Blaine Gabbert, Justin Blackmon, Taven Bryan, C.J. Henderson, K’Lavon Chaisson and the busts go on).
What position will they target Thursday night? Ideally, free agency is used to fill the needs and the draft replenishes the roster with talent, Baalke said. After free agency and the hiring of a new defensive coordinator, cornerback seems to be the popular choice, followed by, in no particular order, receiver, interior defensive line, offensive line and edge.
It’s a deeper receiver draft than it is corner, so the possibility of landing a receiver with a first-round grade is good when Jacksonville goes on the clock at No. 48. The Jaguars have starters at receiver — Christian Kirk, Zay Jones and free agent signee Gabe Davis — but could use a younger, cheaper option at that position the build with. Those three players, as well as tight end Evan Engram, have all been brought in through free agency.
That’s not a sustainable formula, so expect Jacksonville to target a receiver early in what is considered a deep draft at that position.
“I think it’s a very good group of receivers, obviously. I think those three that everybody is talking about are really good football players. I think there’s some guys in the next wave that are really good football players, too. I think there’s good players like that all the way through the draft in that position,” Baalke said.
“There’s going to be some later round guys that make a mark for themselves at some point in their careers in this league as well. It’s a good group, there’s a lot of variations of guys, guys strictly in the slot, guys strictly out on the perimeter. There are some guys that can move around the formations a little bit more. It’s a good group of receivers.”
Cornerback seems to be the one position that fills a major need. Baalke mentioned several times on Thursday about exploring the possibility to trade up, but not inside the top 10. Is that a smokescreen, or does Jacksonville have a ceiling in a trade that it wouldn’t go beyond?
“Well, we know who’s willing to move and we’ve had preliminary discussions on what that looks like, what it’s going to cost to move up there. I’m not a big believer in moving before draft day because what are you moving for? …,” Baalke said. “So, you have exploratory conversations, you know what it’s going to take you to get to the 12 or 13, 14, 15 or whatever the number is and then you wait until draft day to figure out whether you’re going to do it or not.”
That would seem to preclude the blue-chip receivers (Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers and Rome Odunze), but would suggest that corners like Terrion Arnold and Quinyon Mitchell are in play. Arnold and Mitchell are off the board in most mock drafts at 17.
Jacksonville moved on from starting outside corner Darious Williams after the season and added Ronald Darby in free agency. But starting corner Tyson Campbell is in the final year of his contract and Darby isn’t a long-term answer at corner.
Defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen tends to favor more of a man defense than Mike Caldwell did, so the need for a starting-caliber corner is greater than any other position entering the season.
“I think it’s a good group,” Baalke said of the cornerbacks. “I think if you looked at 32 boards, you’d probably find 28 different ways to stack the top 10 corners in this draft. You might find 32 different ways. I think it’s that close. I think there’s good value, they’re good players, the make up and character of these players are all different, it’s all over the board. It’s going to be interesting how that group falls off the board on draft day.”