48 hours ago we were all talking about how great of a situation Jax was in. Trent Williams and Richard Sherman were on a podcast talking up how close Jax actually was to being back in contention! Trevor Lawrence was a plug and play franchise QB! Urban Meyer is an exciting players coach that everyone loves! No state taxes! Good weather and beaches! All of the Coughlin/NFLPA negativity in the rear view mirror!

We missed out, plain and simple.

Do you honestly believe that two free agents would get on a media channel and blast Duval? I mean, I get the whole jockocracy mindset, but neither of these guys should be accused of being dumb.

There may have been a lot of truth in what they said, but if you think that guys like that with only a few years left in the tank (if at all) are choosing to restart at ground zero you're fooling yourself.

I think that heavily biased people are just trying to make up reasons to make themselves feel better for why we wound up with zero blue chip FAs when all of the FA topics from two days ago and farther back had us landing multiple ones. There are no real excuses to make, we missed out and we shouldn't have.

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I think they are doing a solid job. We don't know who they "miss" on unless that info is leaked. Most of the deals are value deals over the short term. So if they work out, great. If not, we can dump them relatively easily. They are building the team clearly in Urban's image and I am really glad to see that. It shows he is the main one in charge. He also isn't bringing in any players that his coaches haven't worked with in the past so the chances of them working out are very high.

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Big splashes are fir next year when it’s time to make a run. Smart short term plan being executed. Draft time!

Next year the Cap increases so there will be a lot more competition for elite players.  This was the year in which the cap reduced, leaving a lot of teams without the $$ to compete for free agents.  That said, certain players weren't coming to the Jags regardless of our offer.  We need to take that into consideration.

Not so fast, from what I read a 2021 cap based on actual 2020 revenue would have been about 20M lower than it was set to, so there is a possibility that the cap stagnates or further reduces to account for the loss. It's not going to rubber band back to nearly 200M in one season.

I doubt we'll have similar spending power next season, but if teams that were pushing out to buy a year or two remain in dire straits, there may be a second wave of bargains to hit the market next season (or contracts pushed even farther out).

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NE is crushing free agency. Why? Solid FO, HOF coach, pleyers that fit in a successful, creative system, and the winningest franchise over the last 20 years.
It’s a dream destination for players. People want to be there. JaX is bottom of the barrel when it come to destination franchises. Only winning will change this.

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NE is crushing free agency.  Why?  Solid FO, HOF coach, pleyers that fit in a successful, creative system, and the winningest  franchise over the last 20 years.
It’s a dream destination for players.  People want to be there.  JaX is bottom of the barrel when it come to destination franchises.  Only winning will change this.

Crushing free agency?  Because they signed so many people?  You think maybe Brady had something to do with that record over the last 20 years?  LOL.  He's not there anymore and their starting QB at this point is a beat up, used up, Newton.

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Next year the Cap increases so there will be a lot more competition for elite players.  This was the year in which the cap reduced, leaving a lot of teams without the $$ to compete for free agents.  That said, certain players weren't coming to the Jags regardless of our offer.  We need to take that into consideration.

Not so fast, from what I read a 2021 cap based on actual 2020 revenue would have been about 20M lower than it was set to, so there is a possibility that the cap stagnates or further reduces to account for the loss. It's not going to rubber band back to nearly 200M in one season.

I doubt we'll have similar spending power next season, but if teams that were pushing out to buy a year or two remain in dire straits, there may be a second wave of bargains to hit the market next season (or contracts pushed even farther out).

That is exactly what is happening now. Some teams more than others.....hope the Jag management can play good poker.

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A new broom always sweeps clean.

Meyer and Baalke have had to play the cards that were dealt to them. Currently and/or recently, the Jags are known as a small market team with lesser promotional opportunities and national exposure, coming off multiple losing seasons (1-15 last year), criticized to join recently by the NFLPA, and plagued by prominent ex-players (Ramsey, Ngakue...) as a team not to play for with a losing mentality. I applaud Meyer and Baalke stepping into the leading roles with the honest desire and efforts to turn this franchise around. Winning and current players telling other players this is the place to play will breed more successful free agencies in the future. I view Meyer and Baalke doing a good job in getting the ship moving in the right direction, with the current heavy anchors they have aboard.

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NE is crushing free agency.  Why?  Solid FO, HOF coach, pleyers that fit in a successful, creative system, and the winningest  franchise over the last 20 years.
It’s a dream destination for players.  People want to be there.  JaX is bottom of the barrel when it come to destination franchises.  Only winning will change this.

Crushing free agency?  Because they signed so many people?  You think maybe Brady had something to do with that record over the last 20 years?  LOL.  He's not there anymore and their starting QB at this point is a beat up, used up, Newton.

Not to mention NE lost it's top offensive lineman Joe Thuney and safety Patrick Chung has retired at age 33.

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NE is crushing free agency.  Why?  Solid FO, HOF coach, pleyers that fit in a successful, creative system, and the winningest  franchise over the last 20 years.
It’s a dream destination for players.  People want to be there.  JaX is bottom of the barrel when it come to destination franchises.  Only winning will change this.

I think they're "crushing free agency" (if you want to call it that) because BB doesn't like the fact that Tom Brady won the Super Bowl last year without him, while New England went 7-9, and now everyone thinks Brady was the one responsible for all those championships.  Belichick is desperate to turn things around so he doesn't look bad.  So he's going hog wild trying to get some players.

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I can't believe all of the excuse making on this board.  The Jaguars have sucked before in their history and they had no problems signing free agents in the off season.  Players overwhelmingly follow the money.  It's true that occasionally a player might take less to go to a certain place, but that's the exception.  When it happens, you move to the next best player.  You don't make signing a kick returner, a special teams gunner and a 30+ year old failed running back your priorities.

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I can't believe all of the excuse making on this board.  The Jaguars have sucked before in their history and they had no problems signing free agents in the off season.  Players overwhelmingly follow the money.  It's true that occasionally a player might take less to go to a certain place, but that's the exception.  When it happens, you move to the next best player.  You don't make signing a kick returner, a special teams gunner and a 30+ year old failed running back your priorities.

These are the same people who called Gene Smith a "genius", defended Caldwell, Bradley and the OP even said last year (by Nov or Dec) that our coaching staff wasn't bad...

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"Treyvon Wallet is elite run defender and better overall than Aidan Hutchinson" 11/11/23

Lol your EDIT is exactly why this wasn't done right. The team did a pretty solid job adding good depth/rotational players (albeit they overpaid for most of them), but they missed out on the marquee couple of FAs that a team with our amount of money and needs should have been able to get. If you added something like Lawson and Jonnu or Henry to what we did then I think it would be fair to say we did it right.

Keep whining it suits you. 

Expensive first day free agency is a swing and miss 8 out of 10 times.

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I can't believe all of the excuse making on this board.  The Jaguars have sucked before in their history and they had no problems signing free agents in the off season.  Players overwhelmingly follow the money.  It's true that occasionally a player might take less to go to a certain place, but that's the exception.  When it happens, you move to the next best player.  You don't make signing a kick returner, a special teams gunner and a 30+ year old failed running back your priorities.

Yes, agree that they follow the money in the majority of instances.  However, if the money is similar (meaning you aren't outbidding everyone and overpaying), then the tie usually doesn't land in the Jacksonville favor today.  Hopefully, that will change with wins. Baalke (and Meyer) just before free agency stated they were signing players to a certain value, and would favor players where there was a connection.  I do believe that they went after certain higher 'splash' players, but were outbid to the values placed upon them.  Within the first day of free agency, they were able to acquire 12 new players.  I would have to check, but I don't believe these 12 players were all failed running backs and special teamers.

It would have been nice to see a couple more 'splash' players, but their free agency production was not horrible. Nice thing with the remaining cap is we still have other plan B free agents that can be signed, camp cuts to come, 1st priority in the waiver wire on other releases, room to sign desired extensions (ie. Chark), and room to sign a draft class without cuts.

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I can't believe all of the excuse making on this board.  The Jaguars have sucked before in their history and they had no problems signing free agents in the off season.  Players overwhelmingly follow the money.  It's true that occasionally a player might take less to go to a certain place, but that's the exception.  When it happens, you move to the next best player.  You don't make signing a kick returner, a special teams gunner and a 30+ year old failed running back your priorities.

Yes, agree that they follow the money in the majority of instances.  However, if the money is similar (meaning you aren't outbidding everyone and overpaying), then the tie usually doesn't land in the Jacksonville favor today.  Hopefully, that will change with wins.  Baalke (and Meyer) just before free agency stated they were signing players to a certain value, and would favor players where there was a connection.  I do believe that they went after certain higher 'splash' players, but were outbid to the values placed upon them.  Within the first day of free agency, they were able to acquire 12 new players.  I would have to check, but I don't believe these 12 players were all failed running backs and special teamers.

You would be correct. 

Free agency is best for value deals and patches as Vic used to say. 

Almost every time we sign big price free agents, it doesn’t work out for Jax, same for many other franchises. We got extremely fortunate in 2017, and even then, look how long that lasted....

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There isnt any doubt we had one of the top 5 FA classes. Is there a few players I wish we were able to get we missed on? Yes, but all in all it was a good haul, especially for the defense

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There isnt any doubt we had one of the top 5 FA classes. Is there a few players I wish we were able to get we missed on? Yes, but all in all it was a good haul, especially for the defense

Lmao yes there is plenty of doubt about it.

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Big splashes are fir next year when it’s time to make a run. Smart short term plan being executed. Draft time!

Next year the Cap increases so there will be a lot more competition for elite players.  This was the year in which the cap reduced, leaving a lot of teams without the $$ to compete for free agents.  That said, certain players weren't coming to the Jags regardless of our offer.  We need to take that into consideration.

Exactly.  They did the best with what they could get to Jax.  The other side of this is that Urban and the rest of the guys don't know football as well as the posters on this site and missed amazing opportunities to buy a super bowl team.

Since I live in the real world, I can accept Urban know football players and coaches and there is a clear strategy here if you look  closely enough.

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Next year the Cap increases so there will be a lot more competition for elite players.  This was the year in which the cap reduced, leaving a lot of teams without the $$ to compete for free agents.  That said, certain players weren't coming to the Jags regardless of our offer.  We need to take that into consideration.

Exactly.  They did the best with what they could get to Jax.  The other side of this is that Urban and the rest of the guys don't know football as well as the posters on this site and missed amazing opportunities to buy a super bowl team.

Since I live in the real world, I can accept Urban know football players and coaches and there is a clear strategy here if you look  closely enough.

Urban Meyer retained George Warhop (the worst O-Line coach in the NFL and the man that convinced Meyer we have good OT's.) He can't be that smart.

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I can't believe all of the excuse making on this board.  The Jaguars have sucked before in their history and they had no problems signing free agents in the off season.  Players overwhelmingly follow the money.  It's true that occasionally a player might take less to go to a certain place, but that's the exception.  When it happens, you move to the next best player.  You don't make signing a kick returner, a special teams gunner and a 30+ year old failed running back your priorities.

Yes, agree that they follow the money in the majority of instances.  However, if the money is similar (meaning you aren't outbidding everyone and overpaying), then the tie usually doesn't land in the Jacksonville favor today.  Hopefully, that will change with wins.  Baalke (and Meyer) just before free agency stated they were signing players to a certain value, and would favor players where there was a connection.  I do believe that they went after certain higher 'splash' players, but were outbid to the values placed upon them.  Within the first day of free agency, they were able to acquire 12 new players.  I would have to check, but I don't believe these 12 players were all failed running backs and special teamers.

It would have been nice to see a couple more 'splash' players, but their free agency production was not horrible.  Nice thing with the remaining cap is we still have other plan B free agents that can be signed, camp cuts to come, 1st priority in the waiver wire on other releases, room to sign desired extensions (ie. Chark), and room to sign a draft class without cuts.

First, I hate the term "splash" which implies it is about making noise and getting attention.  This has absolutely nothing to do with that.  Let's use the word "quality".  We wanted quality players.

Second, perhaps they stumbled across the rare player or two who went somewhere else for less money.  However, when you have some sites that have our best free agent acquisition not even ranking in the top 40 despite us having had more salary cap space available than anyone, it's not prudent to think that's because of players walking away as most willingly go to the highest bidder.  It's clear the front office was not serious about signing quality players.  I will give them credit for obtaining quantity.  I just prefer quality.  It's not too hard to find "just a guy" starters, rotational players, backups and special teamers.  Quality starters are more difficult and that's why you should take advantage of the opportunity when you have one.

Third, you reference that there's still plan B free agents, camp cuts, and first priority on the waiver wire.  That's true and I would say that those are great places to find "just a guy" starters, rotational players, backups and special teamers.  Right now, our roster doesn't need a bunch more of those type of players.  We need quality starters.  We should have gotten quality starters first in free agency and then used these other routes to complete the rest of the of the roster.

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There isnt any doubt we had one of the top 5 FA classes.  Is there a few players I wish we were able to get we missed on?  Yes, but all in all it was a good haul, especially for the defense

Lmao yes there is plenty of doubt about it.

https://twitter.com/PFF/status/1372579752712810502?s=19

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