If we have Agnew and etienne back close to full speed, and then draft or sign another speedster, then this offense will have a lot more explosive plays in 2022. Let’s hope Etienne had a great surgery. He is really young.

Agnew to me is more of a playmaker who I want on the field than shenault. I’m hoping shenault proves me wrong next year though. I remember Rady White’s first two seasons, when he struggled with drops, and people assumed he was a bust. Sometimes receivers break out year 3. However, either way, etienne is going to open up a lot of options by himself as a true pass catching back.

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Oh yeah, let's compound bad drafting with more bad drafting. Just go sign some guy as an UDFA and he can be the 3rd guy/injury starter for us.

Good lord, we have 11 draft picks.  You don't think we can afford to spend one on a running back?

Nope, we have at least 12 positions more difficult to fill for this team including Receiver, Tight End, every line position on both sides of the ball and every LB spot except for Josh Allen's. Running backs are a dime a dozen.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Good lord, we have 11 draft picks.  You don't think we can afford to spend one on a running back?

What round?

Earliest I would do it would be maybe round 4.  There should be plenty of good prospects at that spot.  I don't want to start the season with a rookie UDFA starting for us, if Etienne and Robinson are not ready.

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While obviously the way things have worked out thus far are not that ideal, I still maintain we need to wait and see on this one. People writing the guy off off as a bust when he’s never played a down in the NFL are getting a bit ahead of themselves. The guy could be pretty electric and has good pass catching  ability out of the backfield. We really missed that kind a home run threat this past year. Let’s see how it plays out.

I was one of Etienne's earliest and biggest proponents, and now that he's a Jaguar, I assure you I have no desire to or interest in simply writing him off.  Had he torn his ACL, while I'd have some reservations, I'd be far more confident in his return and the possibility that he could be a productive player for us.  But given that it's a lis franc injury that derailed Corey Grant's career, I have far more concerns.

If Etienne returns to his pre injury health, I will welcome him back, applaud his return, and enjoy his big play capability I saw from him when he was at Clemson being employed by our current offensive coaching staff.

But until then, I have my doubts.

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Etienne will be ready in time for training camp for sure. He'll be able to contribute within 2022 BUT he'll never be the same RB. He will have lost some of his abilities to plant his foot while making a cut. Being that Robinson won't be ready until the season has started, we need to draft a RB this year.

Time Will Tell.

NH3...

Oh yeah, let's compound bad drafting with more bad drafting. Just go sign some guy as an UDFA and he can be the 3rd guy/injury starter for us.

Seriously?

If that's the case, why not just go into the season with Ryquell Armstead and Carlos Hyde?

Drafting a RB is not necessarily a bad drafting decision, especially given our situation at the position.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Good lord, we have 11 draft picks.  You don't think we can afford to spend one on a running back?

Nope, we have at least 12 positions more difficult to fill for this team including Receiver, Tight End, every line position on both sides of the ball and every LB spot except for Josh Allen's. Running backs are a dime a dozen.

(e,phasis added)

Again with this Ketchman "dime a dozen" stuff.

Staahhp!

This team spent 3 premium draft picks on RBs since 2015: 

2015 Yeldon in the 2nd round
2017 Fournette in the first round
2021 Etienne in the first round

On top of that, they also drafted Armstead in the 5th round a couple of years back.  Yet despite the whole alleged dime a dozen rationale, we have more uncertainty at the position than we've ever had in our history.

We saw that having a viable running game takes much of the burden off of Trevor Lawrence and can make him more effective.

We've also seen that the three most succesful eras in our team's history were marked by considerable early investment at the RB position

Successful Era 1: 1995-1999
1st round pick James Stewart in 1995
1st round pick Fred Taylor in 1998

Successful era 2: 2003-2007
1998 First round pick Fred Taylor
2006 2nd round pick Maurice Jones Drew

2017-First round pick Leonard Fournette

Why jeopardize that by completely neglecting the position, especially when the investments at the position have not paid off or are in jeopardy of being lost to injury?

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Robinson was a UDFA...just sayin'...

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Robinson was a UDFA...just sayin'...

Understood completely, and I had no intent to suggest otherwise.  But right now, he is recovering from a late season achilles tear.

Achilles' tears are notoriously difficult to return from, especially for a RB.  He suffered that injury against New England, IIRC, which was the next to last game of the season.  Will he be back in time for the start of the regular season?

But even putting that aside, having an UDFA as a quality starting RB is an aberration.  You can not reliably and consistently depend on that result from UDFA,.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Robinson was a UDFA...just sayin'...

Understood completely, and I had no intent to suggest otherwise.  But right now, he is recovering from a late season achilles tear.

Achilles' tears are notoriously difficult to return from, especially for a RB.  He suffered that injury against New England, IIRC, which was the next to last game of the season.  Will he be back in time for the start of the regular season?

But even putting that aside, having an UDFA as a quality starting RB is an aberration.  You can not reliably and consistently depend on that result from UDFA,.

Clearly you can't depend on it by wasting high draft capital on them either then.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

Robinson was a UDFA...just sayin'...

Understood completely, and I had no intent to suggest otherwise.  But right now, he is recovering from a late season achilles tear.

Achilles' tears are notoriously difficult to return from, especially for a RB.  He suffered that injury against New England, IIRC, which was the next to last game of the season.  Will he be back in time for the start of the regular season?

But even putting that aside, having an UDFA as a quality starting RB is an aberration.  You can not reliably and consistently depend on that result from UDFA,.

The biggest asset to any RB is a good O-Line. If we maintain the OT positions by franchising Cam and having him compete with Little for the LT position with the loser moving to RT and Taylor getting cut, we could use free agency and the draft to upgrade the interior O-Line. Then I believe we could get away with having a really good UDFA as a starting RB until Etienne or Robinson are ready to play. This draft is absolutely loaded with really good RB's. Twice as many as will be drafted. There will be very, very good runners who will be waiting for calls from NFL teams after the draft has concluded. Teams are placing less emphasis on the RB position. Combine that with the sheer numbers of good college RB's who enter the draft early and you have a logjam of talent at a position that is already saturated with good players.

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Understood completely, and I had no intent to suggest otherwise.  But right now, he is recovering from a late season achilles tear.

Achilles' tears are notoriously difficult to return from, especially for a RB.  He suffered that injury against New England, IIRC, which was the next to last game of the season.  Will he be back in time for the start of the regular season?

But even putting that aside, having an UDFA as a quality starting RB is an aberration.  You can not reliably and consistently depend on that result from UDFA,.

The biggest asset to any RB is a good O-Line. If we maintain the OT positions by franchising Cam and having him compete with Little for the LT position with the loser moving to RT and Taylor getting cut, we could use free agency and the draft to upgrade the interior O-Line. Then I believe we could get away with having a really good UDFA as a starting RB until Etienne or Robinson are ready to play. This draft is absolutely loaded with really good RB's. Twice as many as will be drafted. There will be very, very good runners who will be waiting for calls from NFL teams after the draft has concluded. Teams are placing less emphasis on the RB position. Combine that with the sheer numbers of good college RB's who enter the draft early and you have a logjam of talent at a position that is already saturated with good players.

Cam might not want to play RT, hes always been a LT.  What if Little beats him out and Cam says he doesn't want to play RT?

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Understood completely, and I had no intent to suggest otherwise.  But right now, he is recovering from a late season achilles tear.

Achilles' tears are notoriously difficult to return from, especially for a RB.  He suffered that injury against New England, IIRC, which was the next to last game of the season.  Will he be back in time for the start of the regular season?

But even putting that aside, having an UDFA as a quality starting RB is an aberration.  You can not reliably and consistently depend on that result from UDFA,.

Clearly you can't depend on it by wasting high draft capital on them either then.

But if you evaluate them properly and still draft them high, you aren't wasting draft capital (Derrick Henry, Adrian Peterson, Jonathan Taylor).  You are far more apt to get a quality RB in the first three rounds of the draft than you are UDFA.

Prove me wrong.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

The biggest asset to any RB is a good O-Line. If we maintain the OT positions by franchising Cam and having him compete with Little for the LT position with the loser moving to RT and Taylor getting cut, we could use free agency and the draft to upgrade the interior O-Line. Then I believe we could get away with having a really good UDFA as a starting RB until Etienne or Robinson are ready to play. This draft is absolutely loaded with really good RB's. Twice as many as will be drafted. There will be very, very good runners who will be waiting for calls from NFL teams after the draft has concluded. Teams are placing less emphasis on the RB position. Combine that with the sheer numbers of good college RB's who enter the draft early and you have a logjam of talent at a position that is already saturated with good players.

Cam might not want to play RT, hes always been a LT.  What if Little beats him out and Cam says he doesn't want to play RT?

Tough [BLEEP]. Play or sit. If Little clearly wins you play the better player at LT.

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Yeah little already showed me enough to think he would beat cam out in an honest competition. his performance was one of the big differences in the offense during week 17 against the colts. He stone walled a great d-line. I don’t even know why there is all this talk about left tackle. He is already on the team. I would rather go with a guy who has actually already played some NFL games and been excellent, rather than draft a guy at number 1 overall who is a theoretical project at the NFL level. I’m fine with taking a right tackle at the top of round two though.

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Yeah little already showed me enough to think he would beat cam out in an honest competition. his performance was one of the big differences in the offense during week 17 against the colts. He stone walled a great d-line. I don’t even know why there is all this talk about left tackle. He is already on the team. I would rather go with a guy who has actually already played some NFL games and been excellent, rather than draft a guy at number 1 overall who is a theoretical project at the NFL level. I’m fine with taking a right tackle at the top of round two though.

My deepest hope he IS the long term answer at LT.  He has shown some potential to be that.

This is why I labeled him the most important draft pick in last year's draft besides Trevor Lawrence.  If we hit on that pick....at that position...it frees the team up to do so many different things this year.

If he is the answer at LT, and his presence enables the Jaguars to go edge rusher at #1, I'm okay with that as long as they get that edge rusher pick right.

If the team believes Little is the answer at LT (and are right) and that enables the team to trade back, accumulate picks, and get more help at more positions, I'm okay with that too.

As many problems as I have with Baalke, if he got the Walker Little pick right on top of drafting TL, he will have done a ton for this franchise.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

The biggest asset to any RB is a good O-Line. If we maintain the OT positions by franchising Cam and having him compete with Little for the LT position with the loser moving to RT and Taylor getting cut, we could use free agency and the draft to upgrade the interior O-Line. Then I believe we could get away with having a really good UDFA as a starting RB until Etienne or Robinson are ready to play. This draft is absolutely loaded with really good RB's. Twice as many as will be drafted. There will be very, very good runners who will be waiting for calls from NFL teams after the draft has concluded. Teams are placing less emphasis on the RB position. Combine that with the sheer numbers of good college RB's who enter the draft early and you have a logjam of talent at a position that is already saturated with good players.

Cam might not want to play RT, hes always been a LT.  What if Little beats him out and Cam says he doesn't want to play RT?

He'd have the franchise tag. He either plays RT or he accumulates daily fines to the point where he isn't making any money. Play and be paid or whine and pout and get fined.

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Cam might not want to play RT, hes always been a LT.  What if Little beats him out and Cam says he doesn't want to play RT?

He'd have the franchise tag. He either plays RT or he accumulates daily fines to the point where he isn't making any money. Play and be paid or whine and pout and get fined.

The team will talk to him before we franchise him.  If he tells the team that he doesn't want to play RT and Pederson likes Little at LT, it would be idiotic to tag him and deal with that distraction.  A new staff doesn't need that headache and it's not worth it to deal with that

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Cam might not want to play RT, hes always been a LT.  What if Little beats him out and Cam says he doesn't want to play RT?

Tough [BLEEP].  Play or sit.  If Little clearly wins you play the better player at LT.

Why would the new staff even put themselves in that situation?  Why would Pederson want to do that?  Get a distraction right off the bat even when there is better options out there and Cam isn't even worth the franchise tag in the first place.  I'm pretty sure Pederson wouldnt want that distraction and headache right off the bat when he can go a different direction and upgrade

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Yeah little already showed me enough to think he would beat cam out in an honest competition. his performance was one of the big differences in the offense during week 17 against the colts. He stone walled a great d-line. I don’t even know why there is all this talk about left tackle. He is already on the team. I would rather go with a guy who has actually already played some NFL games and been excellent, rather than draft a guy at number 1 overall who is a theoretical project at the NFL level. I’m fine with taking a right tackle at the top of round two though.

Agreed with Little, but if they feel Neal can be an All Pro at RT I'm good with taking a RT at 1 if he's a great one.  Would be very beneficial for Trevor

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He'd have the franchise tag. He either plays RT or he accumulates daily fines to the point where he isn't making any money. Play and be paid or whine and pout and get fined.

The team will talk to him before we franchise him.  If he tells the team that he doesn't want to play RT and Pederson likes Little at LT, it would be idiotic to tag him and deal with that distraction.  A new staff doesn't need that headache and it's not worth it to deal with that

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Tough [BLEEP].  Play or sit.  If Little clearly wins you play the better player at LT.

Why would the new staff even put themselves in that situation?  Why would Pederson want to do that?  Get a distraction right off the bat even when there is better options out there and Cam isn't even worth the franchise tag in the first place.  I'm pretty sure Pederson wouldnt want that distraction and headache right off the bat when he can go a different direction and upgrade

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Yeah little already showed me enough to think he would beat cam out in an honest competition. his performance was one of the big differences in the offense during week 17 against the colts. He stone walled a great d-line. I don’t even know why there is all this talk about left tackle. He is already on the team. I would rather go with a guy who has actually already played some NFL games and been excellent, rather than draft a guy at number 1 overall who is a theoretical project at the NFL level. I’m fine with taking a right tackle at the top of round two though.

Agreed with Little, but if they feel Neal can be an All Pro at RT I'm good with taking a RT at 1 if he's a great one.  Would be very beneficial for Trevor

It would be idiotic to name a starting LT before camp even started. I would sit down and explain to both Robinson and Little that there will be an open competition for the starting LT spot. The runner-up would be the starting RT. Make the winner earn it, that way the one who loses out and moves to RT knows they had a chance to be the LT. There should be no whining and pouting about moving to RT, when they had a shot to be the starting LT and lost out.

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The team will talk to him before we franchise him.  If he tells the team that he doesn't want to play RT and Pederson likes Little at LT, it would be idiotic to tag him and deal with that distraction.  A new staff doesn't need that headache and it's not worth it to deal with that

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Why would the new staff even put themselves in that situation?  Why would Pederson want to do that?  Get a distraction right off the bat even when there is better options out there and Cam isn't even worth the franchise tag in the first place.  I'm pretty sure Pederson wouldnt want that distraction and headache right off the bat when he can go a different direction and upgrade

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Agreed with Little, but if they feel Neal can be an All Pro at RT I'm good with taking a RT at 1 if he's a great one.  Would be very beneficial for Trevor

It would be idiotic to name a starting LT before camp even started. I would sit down and explain to both Robinson and Little that there will be an open competition for the starting LT spot. The runner-up would be the starting RT. Make the winner earn it, that way the one who loses out and moves to RT knows they had a chance to be the LT. There should be no whining and pouting about moving to RT, when they had a shot to be the starting LT and lost out.

There shouldn't be any whining but that's not how it works.  Do you know why the Ravens traded Brown?  I don't see Cam moving to RT lol

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Why would you pay someone more than $16M if you're not even sure he's the starter? What's more, you're saying Little was a bust by doing so.

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Why would you pay someone more than $16M if you're not even sure he's the starter? What's more, you're saying Little was a bust by doing so.

Agreed, and he was a high draft pick that looked very good in the last couple games.  As someone pointed out, he was a big reason Trevor has so much success the last game, he was a wall out there.  It also isn't like he was some late round pick or some guy that came out of nowhere.  Before the injury most had him being the first tackle of the board and was a 5 star recruit coming out of High School.

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