(02-17-2025, 11:50 AM)flsprtsgod Wrote:

(02-16-2025, 03:56 PM)jaglou53 Wrote: I'm sure that there will be much discussion on whether or not to keep Kirk on the roster. Coen may be tempted to pursue Chris Godwin- someone he is very familiar with to replace Kirk or even Tee Higgins despite his high price tag. Personally, I'd keep Kirk for at least one more season. Despite his injury problems the past 2 seasons, he and Lawrence have great rapport and I'm betting on him to remain healthy in 2025. Equally important is the fact that free agent wide receivers are historically vastly overpaid and I'd rather the Jaguars sign a cornerback and/or safety in free agency.

The Etienne decision may also be a difficult one for Coen to decide on. Last season, emerging star Bucky Irving took over as the team's lead back. Irving was selected in the 4th round and Coen may decide he can replicate Irving's success with a mid-round draft pick in April. When looking at this year's deep draft class, I could see the Jaguars selecting someone like Brashard Smith, who has a similar skillset to Irving and is predicted to be drafted in the same range. At the least, Smith would become a good 3rd down option due to his pass catching skills while the best case scenario would be he becomes like another Irving and eventually becomes the number 1 back.

The issue with that is that ETN is going to be $6 million against the cap (no one is reasonably trading for that number IMO), so why would you pay a rookie $6 million plus his rookie number to play the position when ETN is only here one more year. It's the same argument with Kirk, this team in his first year shouldn't just cut a bunch of vets who will be exiting naturally the following year. Spend those dollars and capital on the other positions of need that are more challenging to find than running back or #3 wide out. This wouldn't even be a discussion if Baalke hadn't screwed us over by picking up the option, but it was just one more middle finger to us on his way out.

The option was picked up last offseason where he had come off of a season of producing a little under 1500 all purpose yards with 12 total TDs in 2023.  It wasn't a mistake given what we knew at the time.  He had a bad year in 2024.  Many on the team did though.  As I've mentioned many times before, there is plenty of blame to go around for that, but I wouldn't necessarily hang the guy out to dry moving forward either.  I don't think what we saw in 2024 of Travis is what we're going to see in 2025, but it's definitely something worth monitoring early on in the season.

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