(12-02-2018, 11:36 PM)NYC4jags Wrote: (12-02-2018, 11:17 PM)Bullseye Wrote:
Do you really want to formulate your team's draft strategy around every other team mis-evaluating your guy for 5-6 rounds before you land him?
1. Do you really want to lose three or four winnable games to pick 7th instead of 12th or 13th?
2. Do you have so little faith in your F.O. that you feel they can't land a quality player after dropping 5 spots down the order?
3. The draft is a crapshoot at every selection and while maneuvering upward is not guaranteed - it's also no great mystery. Several teams accomplish it every season successfully. The prospect of it doesn't strike great fear in most GMs.
4. Dropping 5, 6, 7 spots in the draft is completely worth it to me to see the team fix the things that have been broken throughout the season - and to more accurately evaluate the true state of the roster.
(numbering added)
1. Do I WANT to lose those games? As long as the Jaguars are still mathematically alive for the playoffs...no. Once eliminated from the playoffs, I wouldn't necessarily be broken up over losses. There is no advantage to winning late season games once the playoffs are out of the question. However, losses improve draft position. Improved draft position gives access to a larger, more talented talent pool, which presumably improves the chances of a team picking high to pick a player that can turn around its fortunes. That is why the NFL, in the long standing quest for parity and competitive balance, traditionally establishes the draft order in inverse order of record.
2. It's not a matter of faith in the front office to land a good player lower in the draft order. I have constantly expressed confidence in the ability of Caldwell to acquire talent. His eye for talent led us to the season we had last year and gave us the early season hope of a repeat performance this year. But I also know that this team needs a QB more than any other position, and franchise QBs are very difficult to come by. Assuming you can consider Mahomes a franchise signal caller, the Chiefs went four decades without one. They missed with guys like Todd Blackledge. Dave Kreig was average and a big time fumbler. They had Montana at the very end of his career. Smith was a decent to good, not great passer. I don't want that to happen to the Jaguars. Considering QB is a position that's hard to fill and usually in high demand, you simply can't count on franchise QBs falling very far, even though Mahomes fell to 11th, Rodgers fell to 24th-25th, and Brees and Favre fell to the 2nd round. The thing is, draft position doesn't just help in the first round. Even if the consensus that in a given draft, there is 2nd round value for signal callers, being at the top of the second round is better than being in the middle.
3. Yes, the draft IS a crapshoot. I want to mitigate that factor for us by giving us the best available access to the best and largest possible talent pool. As I've said before, Gene Smith couldn't draft his way out of a paper bag, but it's possible even he could have gotten the Andrew Luck pick right. But we'll never know, because picking 7th, he never had the chance to get him.
4. But that presumes the team can't accurately evaluate the talent on the roster if the team doesn't win. This coaching staff has coached this roster for the last two seasons-OTAs, minicamps, training camps, preseason games, practices, regular season games, and post season games. I submit unfamiliarity with this team did not doom the team this year. I think an excessive amount of injuries along the offensive side of the ball, poor QB play, and overall team immaturity doomed the team this year. Now is it possible the coaching staff and FO staff isn't here next year? Sadly yes. But there's no shortage of quality tape on any of our guys.
Worst to 1st. Curse Reversed!
