You never know. In 1974, the Steelers draft included 4 players who are now in the Hall of Fame. In the 2000 draft, the Patriots draft was all complete busts except for one guy they drafted in the 6th round who turned out to be arguably the greatest pro football player of all time. We don't know what's going to happen.

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Year after year the same no nothing homer’s on this board say the same thing. “Give them a chance” “you guys are so negative “ and rah rah rah. And every year the Jaguars SUCK because historically they draft like crap. So, outside of  Lawerence, I’ll save the rah rah rah crap until they prove they have changed. You dorks that do this every year have zero credibility and even less football sense. So save it, no one wants to hear this crap until they actually do something worth cheering.

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"If you always do what you've always done, You'll always get what you always got"

I think there are some competing factors here as to why maybe the board has lower opinion than the national media. First, I think most fans here are looking at this as a 2 part draft. Trevor Lawrence and then the rest of the draft. Everyone on the planet, aside from Chris SImms and the families of the other top QB prospects, would have taken Lawrence first. Obviously he is an A+ but the reaction of most fans on this board is really a grade on the rest of the draft. Second factor is that we all know the national media (including the supposed football experts) don't know much about the Jags. We've all read articles or seen segments on TV where they clearly haven't done their homework. And while that should be somewhat mitigated here because these grades are more about the college prospects and less about the Jags, the needs of the team, the type of offense / defense the team wants to run is a factor, etc.. do play a part in these grades. And honestly I'd follow the combined judgement and wisdom of the better posters on this board than I would any talking head that isn't based on Jacksonville.

As far as this draft, I'll admit I'm a little underwhelmed after the Lawrence pick. Specifically our next 4 picks across Day 1 and 2 and less so Day 3 as those players taken round 4 and beyond are typically more of a longshot. Ironically it seems like Etienne is driving down our grades nationally while I can argue for that pick more than the others. I'm not a huge fan of Etienne at that spot but not because of the typical criticism about taking a RB in the first. That pick needs to be thought of as a taking a playmaker who can run out of the backfield, can catch the ball in the flat or even out of the slot, and someone who can be thought of as a gamebreaker. Who cares if he is called RB or WR. So many good players these days are versatile that the position name is a little more irrelevant. I just have doubts if he is truly the gamebreaker they think he is.

Tyson Campbell seems like the oddest pick to me. So early in the draft to take a guy who was a decent player in college but not great and you're hoping the potential of his elite level size and straight line speed can be realized. There were other players available that also had really good potential but were actually better college football players so you know they were closer to that fulfilling that potential. Then combine the fact that it's at a position which is one of the few we don't have a desperate need and it feels like a strange pick so early in the second. Not necessarily a need or value pick. And of course digging more into the player, the extremely poor short shuttle and 3 cone tests puts into question his agility and will he be limited to an outside corner only.

Walker Little I understand the idea. I made the comment on another thread that Gene Smith loved the idea of taking small school guys that would have been rated higher had they played at higher levels of competition but he always seemed to overdraft them as if they had. I didnt love the strategy but at least I understand it. And with Baalke we all talked about this beforehand that with the Niners he loved taking injured players that would have gone much higher had they not been. Again I understand the logic of the strategy. I like that strategy better with 4th and 5th round players as opposed to doing that in the 2nd round. I dont believe any of Baalke's ACL picks with the Niners ever came close to living up to potential. Tank Carradine being the only 2nd rounder and he was never close to what he was beforehand. Little supposedly had a great sophomore year. Blew a knee. No one has seen him play since. Hopefully he'll regain the form he had two years ago. And if so, he could be a huge steal in this draft. But for a team that went 1-15 and has a lot of holes, sure seems like there were better options. Similar players at the same position that werent hurt. This feels like the ultimate luxury pick that a team without a lot of holes can make.

Cisco same story. Another ACL tear and no one has seen him play since. Hopefully he regains his form as well. Even without the ACL tear it sounds like there were some questions about him. Made a bunch of big plays but due to propensity to gamble would also give up a bunch of big players. Unlike Little who blew his knee out a year and a half ago, Cisco blew his out early last season. Seems like guys come back from ACL tears pretty quickly these days but do we know if he'll be ready for the beginning of the season? Even if so may take him some time to feel fully secure in that knee. Even if he were to have a disappointing year in 2021, would probably be unfair to put a label on him. Again another luxury pick for a team with a lot of needs.

The rest of the draft seems fine for day 3 I guess. Always getting a guy that has some weakness. Either great athlete but not great football player, vice versa so maybe limited potential, etc, etc... I admittedly don't know much about the guy from USC. Fills a need, seems solid. Saw a conflicting reports on whether he can hold up in the run which is basically what we'll need out of dlineman. Felt like they had to take the best dlineman as they passed on that position first two days. There were other players I liked more but I'm not Nostradamus. Felt like they were trying to fill needs in round 4 and not sure they got the best value there. We'll see.

Overall I do feel underwhelmed. I'm not expecting much from Little and Cisco this first year. Little because he'll need to prove he is 100% healthy and will then have to beat out Cam and Jawaan. Cisco I don't know what his recovery status is and if he'll be 100% during the season. Not a given either starts or will see the field much. Campbell will probably play a bit as 5-6 DBs on the field is almost the standard now. Barring injury, I doubt he'll be a top two starter. And if he isn't agile enough for the slot, does he get in on nickel downs though? Would they kick Henderson or Shaq inside? Sidney and Herndon are solid nickel corners already. Will be interesting to see how much time he gets and if he becomes a better pro player than he was a college one. Etienne will likely give us the most production of any of these early picks. I hope is the gamebreaking playmaker they want him to be. I bet he gets a lot of playing time and will be fun to see how they use him. I do have questions if he is gonna be that explosive playmaker which I could spend a few more paragraphs discussing... wrote about him in the specific Etienne thread.

Anyways for a team that has a lot of weaknesses and had a bunch of early round draft picks, it feels odd walking away from this thinking that we might not see much impact from the majority of these players. You look back and wonder how this happened.

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________________________________________________
Scouting well is all that matters.  Draft philosophy is all fluff.

In response to Ronster:

Actually, a lot of people on the board would rather hear some positivity. What does it matter for fans to be a little overly positive now and disappointed later? Better to have some enjoyment thinking about the potential now. This is just entertainment. It’s just an escape from real life. Nothing more. So to act like everyone needs to take it as seriously as geopolitical decisions is a false argument.

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Year after year the same no nothing homer’s on this board say the same thing. “Give them a chance” “you guys are so negative “ and rah rah rah. And every year the Jaguars SUCK because historically they draft like crap. So, outside of  Lawerence, I’ll save the rah rah rah crap until they prove they have changed. You dorks that do this every year have zero credibility and even less football sense. So save it, no one wants to hear this crap until they actually do something worth cheering.

So, you are going to be negative until they actually give you a reason to be positive.  Other people are going to be positive until they actually give them a reason to be negative.  Neither side is right, and neither side is wrong, but I'd bet the latter group are going to be happier in the meantime.

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In response to Ronster:

Actually, a lot of people on the board would rather hear some positivity. What does it matter for fans to be a little overly positive now and disappointed later? Better to have some enjoyment thinking about the potential now. This is just entertainment. It’s just an escape from real life. Nothing more. So to act like everyone needs to take it as seriously as geopolitical decisions is a false argument.

Ha! You beat me to it.  That's what I was trying to say.

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Lots of A's and B's..

I checked out each link posted, not 1 grade lower than a B for a final grade..

The Sporting News gave us a C.

Which seems about right. Got a generational QB then proceeded to take a running back in the first round (usually bad value) and a bunch of other guys not widely rated very positively, seemingly based on their evaluations coming out of highschool.

The draft might turn out to be good, but that's always the case.

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Year after year the same no nothing homer’s on this board say the same thing. “Give them a chance” “you guys are so negative “ and rah rah rah. And every year the Jaguars SUCK because historically they draft like crap. So, outside of  Lawerence, I’ll save the rah rah rah crap until they prove they have changed. You dorks that do this every year have zero credibility and even less football sense. So save it, no one wants to hear this crap until they actually do something worth cheering.

So, you are going to be negative until they actually give you a reason to be positive.  Other people are going to be positive until they actually give them a reason to be negative.  Neither side is right, and neither side is wrong, but I'd bet the latter group are going to be happier in the meantime.

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In response to Ronster:

Actually, a lot of people on the board would rather hear some positivity. What does it matter for fans to be a little overly positive now and disappointed later? Better to have some enjoyment thinking about the potential now. This is just entertainment. It’s just an escape from real life. Nothing more. So to act like everyone needs to take it as seriously as geopolitical decisions is a false argument.

Ha! You beat me to it.  That's what I was trying to say.

BURP, don’t mind me. I’m just a grouchy old man that has watched this team since the beginning and am sick of the Jags sucking balls...

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"If you always do what you've always done, You'll always get what you always got"

Ronster is like Bizarro Wolfie..

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Lots of A's and B's..

I checked out each link posted, not 1 grade lower than a B for a final grade..

The Sporting News gave us a C.

My mistake..

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Ronster is like Bizarro Wolfie..

Except wolfie has more intelligence... by a lot.

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I don’t think it’s a bad draft, we addressed nearly all the needs we have all been mentioning as a priority other than TE. I think it was maybe done in an order that we didn’t expect and some of the favourites to be picked by us (Moehrig, Barmore & Friermuth) were overlooked.

However that in itself is interesting as titbits coming out now may explain the reasoning behind that now.

The only thing that concerns me is a few of the picks are risky but could have high reward.

I am surprised Minshew didn’t go. Be interesting to see how his situation plays out.

Generally I agree with this.

I think UMs elaboration on how Etienne will be utilized (said he would be cross trained at WR) gives me confidence they could manufacture touches for him.  Many times receiving backs don't get enough touches to make much meaningful impact.  It'll be interesting to see how successful they will be in getting Etienne out into space where he is most dangerous.

In terms of risk, I like what I saw in the clips from Cisco.  I am confident he'll be fine.  The bulk of my concern lies with Walker Little.  Once we drafted TL, T became the most important position of need for us looking at the premium positions of QB, Edge Rusher, LT, CB.  You could easily make the argument that of the premium positions, LT was the one we had no viable candidates, and it is most critical to TL's future success.  Aside from the overall uncertainty about his ACL recovery (which is mitigated in part being two years removed), that recovery time serves as a curse in some eyes because he also sat out due to Covid, so he hasn't played in two years.  If his knee is healthy-and Upper(?) posted his 3 cone (?) times indicating the knee is now sound-and Warhop and co can get the rust off of him, then I feel much better about the draft overall.

As for Minshew, barring an injury to a starter somewhere, I'm not sure I see him traded this year.  Though it's quite strange for me to type this, if you look around the league right now, there aren't too many teams in dire straits at the position in the aftermath of the draft.  Going by division starting in the east, the one team in the NFCE definitely without a long term answer at QB is Washington.  They have Fitz, who is 38, but has never been a great QB, but that's it.  Every team in the AFC East now has a promising young QB prospect.  In the NFC North, I'm not crazy about Goff, but he helped the Rams reach the Super Bowl just a couple of years ago and he's still relatively young.  Besides that, the Lions wil have a bunch of picks in the future.  Chicago just got their young QB prospect, the Vikings are still decent to good with Cousins.  The Packers are in the most precarious position with Aaron Rodgers threatening to retire, but even then, the Packers just drafted Jordan Love a couple of years ago.  In the AFC N, Pittsburgh is the one team in a precarious position.  Big Ben is on his last legs and his backups aren't that good.  Perhaps they'll be okay at the position if Haskins matures form his Washington days, but that may be an iffy proposition.  In the NFC South, the Saints are in the worst position, but it's not so bad.  Winston has his moments and is still relatively young and they have Taysom Hill behind him.  Matt Ryan is older, but has a lot of weapons around him, has never suffered a major injury, and his level of play is still high.  Our division?  Houston qualifies as a disaster given what's happening woth Watson, even though they brought in Tyrod Taylor and drafted Davis Mills.  Indy COULD be a disaster if they can't refurbish Carson Wentz, who thrived with Reich when both were in Philly.  Not sure we would trade within the division, anyway.  In the NFC West everyone in the division is set with good QB situations.  In the AFC West, only Denver is in limbo at the position, but they have an experienced backup in Bridgewater.  I think Minshew ends up staying here.

BTW, back to draft grades, NFLN Rhett Lewis just gave the Jaguars an A-the highest grade in the division.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Lots of A's and B's..

I checked out each link posted, not 1 grade lower than a B for a final grade..

The Sporting News gave us a C.

I checked again, I'm still looking at a B+..

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The only negative vibes that I earwitnessed w/respect to our 2021 NFL draft came from this board. The media and the true experts gave us the recognition that's deserving.

This deficiency literally happens every year regardless of the changes within the organization. It is what it is. Some of us simply cannot be satisfied.

I feel that our team is definately headed in the right direction but it's goimg to take the time of which some fans aren't willing to give.

NH3...

I saw the national media give us B and B- as overall grades.  That means it's not a disaster like a few posters say it is.  But it also means it is not an A.  That is, the draft was full of missed opportunities.  I think we missed out on premium talent in the 2nd through 6th rounds mainly because Urban may have not had connections to the prospects.  He overvalued those connections.  To me, this is the problem with not having a stronger, more excellent personnel side.  I'm happy for Meyer to have final say.  I just want him to have better support than Baalke and company can give him.

UM was saying he relied heavily on Stanford coach Shaw to help fill in the blanks with Little.  If Little returns to the form that led him to be projected so highly, then we didn't miss out on the premium talent in the 2nd round.  That said, a strong argument can be made that we should have traded up from 45.  Most of the guys we discussed here as possible picks at 25 came off the board between 33 and 45.

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The Sporting News gave us a C.

I checked again, I'm still looking at a B+..

That's my mistake then.  I saw one site give us a C.  Now I can't recall which one it is.

That said, Sporting News ranked the draft classes from best to worst.  The Jaguars were firmly in the middle of the pack at 17, which makes you wonder where we would have ranked had we not gotten Trevor Lawrence.

7. Jacksonville Jaguars

• Grade: B+
  

Draft picks: Clemson QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson RB Travis Etienne, Stanford OT Walker Little, Syracuse S Andre Cisco, USC DT Jay Tufele, UAB DE Jordan Smith, Ohio State TE Luke Farrell, Georgia Tech WR Jalen Camp
The Jaguars got an immediate B for Urban Meyer and GM Trent Baalke by winning the Lawrence lottery. But they seemed a little misguided in how and when to address their franchise QB’s rookie offensive support. Etienne was a very expensive luxury pick for a rebuilding team that already has James Robinson. Little was a good recovery at offensive tackle but they  missed much better opportunities to boost tight end and wide receiver. After Lawrence, Cisco and Tufele were easily the next best picks for defensive needs.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

Ronster is like Bizarro Wolfie..

Except wolfie has more intelligence... by a lot.

You talking about anyone’s intelligence is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black. Good grief. I might have been offended had I cared about an opinion from someone like you.

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"If you always do what you've always done, You'll always get what you always got"

You never know.  In 1974, the Steelers draft included 4 players who are now in the Hall of Fame.  In the 2000 draft, the Patriots draft was all complete busts except for one guy they drafted in the 6th round who turned out to be arguably the greatest pro football player of all time.  We don't know what's going to happen.

Bingo.

To add one more example, Seattle was trashed for their 2012 draft, which netted them two likely Hall of Famers in Bobby Wagner and Russell Wilson.

Our immediate impressions are nice to have and debate, but at the end of the day, we won't know until they prove it wither way on the field.

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The reality is no one, be it on the boards or professionals, has any idea how these drafts will be. If y’all actually watched college football this year, it took about halfway through the season for the teams that played to look like they were even approaching full stride, and that was only the teams not hit by covid. Grades, good or bad, are worthless. This draft is more off of potential than any in recent memory because this past CFB season wasn’t even a real season and had no real offseason before.

Yes.  More guesswork and speculation by teams than normal due to the circumstances.  The crap shoot became a crappier shoot.

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At first glance, it appears Jaguars fans are harder on our draft than many outside observers...

USA Today

https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/lists...nfl-teams/


Pro Football Focus

https://www.pff.com/news/draft-2021-nfl-...l-32-teams

New York Post

https://nypost.com/2021/05/01/2021-nfl-d...SocialFlow

the Tennessean

https://www.tennessean.com/story/sports/...-autopilot

For kicks I looked at pff's ratings and no team got below a C-, so a B+ is more like a B- or C+ if you use stacked a ranking, which is what they should be using, and the Jaguars would be in the middle tier. Every team can't have an average or better draft when it's all from the same pool of players.

That being said, I'm not worrying about trying to evaluate the draft class right now, I'll evaluate them in the fall.

Sporting News did what you suggested here, and we ranked 17th.

We gotta wait and see.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!

The only negative vibes that I earwitnessed w/respect to our 2021 NFL draft came from this board. The media and the true experts gave us the recognition that's deserving.

This deficiency literally happens every year regardless of the changes within the organization. It is what it is. Some of us simply cannot be satisfied.

I feel that our team is definately headed in the right direction but it's goimg to take the time of which some fans aren't willing to give.

NH3...

I saw some negative vibes in the day 1 draft grades, as there were a few graders that didn't care for the Etienne pick.

To this I Concur. All that don't like the Etienne selection only dislike it because it came within the first round. He is rated as the Best RB within the 2021 NFL draft by most if not all evaluators.

Baalke and Meyer stressed the fact to which we were in serious need of a complimentary RB. We drafted him early instead of waiting for the leftovers within the later rounds. They did real good w/respect to this selection.

Time Will Tell.

NH3...

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"AZANE"

Except wolfie has more intelligence... by a lot.

You talking about anyone’s intelligence is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black. Good grief. I might have been offended had I cared about an opinion from someone like you.

Coming from the resident [BLEEP] [BLEEP] idiot, That means a lot. Go back to boycotting the board little punk [BLEEP] [BLEEP].

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A+

We took some guys who have superstar potential (such as ETN/Cisco). We got first round talents in the later rounds due to injury. We got our QB. Not much to complain about.

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seemingly based on their evaluations coming out of highschool.

This was a bizarre thing we should be putting much more emphasis on. After the first round all 4 of the next picks were guys that there were predraft articles about how hard Meyer recruited them out of high school. I really wonder how much of the player pool was thrown out the window simply because Meyer didn't know them 4 years ago. It kind of seems like a whole lot if not most of the pool.

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We need a C or below draft grade

Caldwell always got great draft grades but most of them turned out to be busts once they saw the field

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They are grading our class with it including the best QB prospect in a decade so that is obviously going to boost our grade a ton by itself, as it should in a vaccum. However, I am not giving our FO credit for making the pick that my mother in law who knows nothing about football repeatedly congratulated me for over the last few months.

Just like last year, we're going to get higher grades simply because we had more high picks than anyone else. On a quantity level we did fine. On a per pick value, talent, and opportunity cost basis we had one of the worst drafts.

We had two good picks, but both of them being riskier than your usual highlights of a class, in Little and Cisco. Two decent picks in Campbell and Tufele. One good (not great) player at horrible value and opportunity cost with Etienne. And then a bunch of whatever after pick 106. I do like taking the stab on Camp, but the odds he makes it are still really long.

The only problem I have with this  is the opportunity cost analysis.

All of those guys we discussed at 25 were still there for us at 33.  To me, that's a sign they evaluated and ranked the boards properly at that stage of the draft.  From a pure talent standpoint, few people believe Etienne was not worthy of a late 1st round pick.  All of those guys came off the board after 33 and before 45.  The "opportunity" wasn't lost until after 33.  But with that, it's not as though we didn't get a good player at 33.  An unexpected one, perhaps.  A guy at a position of relative strength, perhaps.

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Worst to 1st.  Curse Reversed!