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JagJohn
Journeyman




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01-26-2020, 02:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-26-2020, 02:35 PM by JagJohn.)
My approach would be based around the central idea that, due to the combination of cap problems, aging vets on big contracts, and young players who haven't fulfilled their potential yet, success next season is highly unlikely.
However, I would be cautiously optimistic that the young talent already on the roster, plus the excellent draft capital we have, gives us a chance to build a good team that could start being competitive in 2021 and could grow into something special. As such, my goal would be to build towards 2021, meaning i'm not going to be too worried about trying to fill all the holes on this roster for the upcoming year.
Coaching: Hire a forward-thinking HC and staff. Old, young, experienced or not, doesn't matter, they just need to be intelligent, analytical and able to adapt to how the league is evolving.
Cap: As much as it pains me to do it, Campbell, Bouye, Dareus would all be gone, along with the obvious cuts. Thinking 2 or more years down the line, these guys are realistically not going to be big contributors, so we are better off freeing up cap room.
If we can somehow trade Foles so that he only becomes a cap hit on this year, great, but I'm not giving up any more than a 5th rounder for it. I think he can be cut after the season for a much more reasonable cap hit, right? I feel like we might be forced into that approach.
FA: Offer Yan a big contract, somewhere in that 21-22 mil a year range. At only 24, he is a player that can be a cornerstone for another 5 years or so, plus it sends an important message and stops the tide of young players leaving Jax.
Generally not going to be a big player in FA. If there are young, ascending players at positions of need then I would make a reasonable offer (Henry and Hooper, for example), but not going crazy. Generally I would look to the 2nd and 3rd waves of FA to fill holes across the roster on reasonable contracts that don't threaten the future health of the cap in any way. Again, youth is preferable but finding some vet stopgaps on bargain deals would be fine too.
Draft: Going to be going more towards the BAP end of the spectrum, with a general preference towards building the offense first if players are similarly rated. At 9 and 20 I would be polling my entire scouting department to get a consensus on which players they expect to turn into elite players in the league, regardless of the situation they end up in. That's what we need. Generally, the entire approach will be more BAP than need; for example if a stud RB drops to round 3 I would have no problem going for it.
The final roster would be planned around developing the young stars we already have and the rookies. We also have a whole bunch of young players that are somewhere between 'could be really good' and 'haven't shown enough, but can't write off yet'. This list includes Robinson, Richardson and Oliver on offense, and Smoot, Bryan, Jack, Jacobs, Herndon and Wilson on defense. They would ideally get significant playing time this year so we can hopefully know if they will be a long-term contributor or not moving forward.
The number one objective of the 2020 season would be to build a platform around Minshew that gives him a chance to succeed. Ultimately I would expect the team to struggle in 2020 and end up with another high-ish draft pick in 2021. At which point, the cap situation would be massively better, hopefully we will have established an identity on offense, and we would be able to accurately guage the strengths and weaknesses of the roster to target FA upgrades. Couple that with a strong 2021 draft class, and this team would look set to become a contender long-term.