Jaguars Get What and Who They Wanted
There’s always been a two-way discussion for NFL teams about the college draft: Do you pick for need or just draft the best player available?
For the Jaguars this year they were picking for something different: No drama.
Head Coach Doug Marrone stressed that point several times leading up to the draft and the Jaguars followed through, picking players who aren’t bringing a lot of baggage to Jacksonville.
“Is it big? Absolutely,” Marrone said of getting rid of any drama surrounding the Jaguars. “Is this something that we’ve stressed? Yes. But we were able to do that without sacrificing the talent or potential.”
They call these types of players “high-character guys” in the NFL. There is a theory that you need some “low-character guys” on your team to win in the league just to keep the other team honest.
This year, the football staff and the personnel department had a plan and they stuck to it. The draft was deep so they felt like they could not only get the player they liked but the kind of player they liked as well.
“So our goal was, ‘we have 12 draft picks, we don’t want to be flippant with the picks.’’ General Manager Dave Caldwell explained. “It’s easy to be like, ‘I have 12 picks, so let’s use this pick to trade up and trade that,’ but let’s just let the draft come to us and still get talented players that fit our culture, fit our locker room and that can come in and compete at a high level.”
There are team captains all over this Jaguars draft. Ten of the first eleven players selected by Marrone and Caldwell were named captains in college. The eleventh, Davon Hamilton (who might have the biggest arms you’ve ever seen) played on the defensive line at Ohio State where Chase Young was the captain but was described by Gene Smith, the Buckeye’s Athletic Director as, “A Sunday kind of guy. He’s disruptive. He’s smart. I love Davon because on top of everything he’s a great human being.”
So coming out of this draft, even if the Jaguars don’t win, you can have them all over for dinner.
“When they’re good players and they’ve been good in the locker room and they’re good on these college campuses and in their community, and then really what that means is now you can coach football and whole focus can be on football,” Marrone explained.
The Jaguars had specific needs, but he wanted players to come into the locker room not worried about their “brand” or their Instagram account. Marrone was looking for workers. He personally talked to college assistants about what kind of workers and teammates potential draft picks were, looking for a specific type of player to come to Jacksonville.
“I really believe that when you don’t have a lot of things going on on the outside with this person or that person or whatever it may be, and you can totally focus just on football when you’re in the building, you have a chance to be a pretty good player,” he added.
That’s not to say they didn’t address their needs, or give up on getting talent either. This draft was so deep at the positions the Jaguars were looking for they could get the guys they wanted without a lot of jumping around. Marrone was quick to say the Jaguars didn’t “settle” on anybody. He claims the players they took early were the highest rated players on their board.
“That is the one thing. I don’t want these players from a situation of, ‘Well, you know what. Jacksonville went ahead and they took two guys that are really great guys, but they may not be talented,’ Marrone said. “We feel that we have gotten great talent, guys that can produce at positions that we needed, but we did not have to go and take them [out of position]. They were the highest rated players on our board when we were going to go and pick.”
And Marrone even leaned on some of his current players when deciding whether a potential draft pick would fit with the culture he’s trying to build. He talked to Jawaan Taylor about C.J. Henderson. They were teammates at Florida. Same with D.J. Chark and K’Lavon Chaisson at LSU, and he was happy with the answers he got.
“There’s players in our locker room that know these players, and that’s important for me to get a sense of, ‘Hey, are these guys going to fit? Are they what we’re looking for?’ Marrone said of his internal research.
“They understand the challenges we have as a team. ‘How are they going to be there?’ I was very comfortable with that. I couldn’t be happier about where we are right now. Who we’re bringing in, we still have that responsibility trying to create this locker room.”
Prior to the draft, Caldwell said that his twelve picks gave him some “ammo” to move around and get the players the Jaguars wanted. So we anticipated some fireworks. That just didn’t happen. The draft unfolded just about how everybody predicted. No big surprises.
“I haven’t been reluctant, I just felt like we had options at every pick,” Caldwell said after day two.
Every time the Jaguars were getting close to their pick, Caldwell said he was ready to make a trade to move up to get who they wanted but he didn’t need to.
‘”Okay, well there’s two picks to go and we feel good about three players or five players,” is how explained what happened. “So there’s no real need to trade up. There’s been enough players that we like. I think sometimes patience pays off.”
This collaboration between Marrone and Caldwell has worked well: at least at getting players and the kind of players the Jaguars wanted. You can disagree with what they’re doing, but they’re building the team they think will work. The model of everybody reporting to one football czar, didn’t work, at least from a personnel perspective.
Marrone told everybody what kind of team he wants the Jaguars to be and the coaching staffs and personnel department worked together to find the players that would fit that model.
Caldwell says the idea they presented to Owner Shad Khan about how to build a team after Khan fired Executive VP Tom Coughlin has worked.
“The process has been really good and it’s been really seamless and enjoyable on my part with our coaching staff and our personnel staff,” he explained. “Good dialogue where everyone can speak freely and not be judged.”
I’ve often thought that the Jaguars should reflect what kind of people live in Jacksonville. Like the Steelers reflect Pittsburgh, the Bills reflect Buffalo and the Ravens reflect Baltimore: Tough, hard working, “I don’t care who gets the credit let’s just get the job done” kind of guys. You know, the anti-Jalen Ramsey type.
This draft seems to have accomplished that. Now let’s see if they can play.
