Quote:Speaking as a fan of a rival team, Caldwell's been tough to evaluate in terms of draft success. His best picks have been pretty obvious early round choices - Bortles + Ramsey/Jack. Though I personally believed Joeckel was a 4th round talent, at the time, all the draft "experts" had him as a consensus top 5 (many as #1 overall) - it's easy to see how a rookie GM would feel pressure not to buck that at a position of major need. I considered Fowler to be over-drafted at #3 overall, but it wasn't crazy as he was certainly a first round talent. This felt like a place where the Jags should have dropped back a few slots, though the actual pick is fine. I liked all his second rounders except Yeldon. Cyprien was over-drafted a bit for a borderline 1st/2nd rounder at a non-premium position.

 

Later rounds however ... wow, it's not good. The only fantastic pick was Michael Bennett. Pretty much the only Jags' 3rd-or-later pick in the last few years to make me go "darn, I wanted him for my team". I'll grant the 2014 class was better than what Jags have been getting for a long while, but I see it as only being about NFL average apart from Bortles. In any draft class, unless you're drafting below #20 you should be looking for two difference makers in their first season, a third guy who becomes a difference maker in his second season and two people who can be groomed into serviceable starters.  

 

Long story short, Caldwell hit on the most important picks, but performed poorly late. Some of his bigger successes have been obvious picks, so the question is: Lucky or good? He didn't do anything to cause Jack's knee to make him fall to the second round, after all. Tough to make a call here. I honestly don't know the answer.

 

His free agency moves have not looked good, but then again with recent Jaguars history signing FAs is a lot rougher for him than for many other teams. The only real motivator available to him is pure pocketbook ... and of course any GM needs to use that particular tool sparingly or he puts his team in cap trouble.