Jaguars' Top Pick Maason Smith Has Taken Another Major Leap

Jacksonville Jaguars defensive tackle Maason Smith is doing more than turning the corner. He is paving a whole new path for himself.

After a string of healthy scratches and ineffective performances during the first half of the season, the Jaguars' second-round rookie from LSU is improving week in and week out. And in Week 16, it resulted in the best game of his career in Jacksonville's loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.

“I thought Maason played well. He had some really good plays in the game," Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said on Monday.

"I'd love to have him get the quarterback on the ground on the one scramble. It was a great play by Aidan [O’Connell] to get out of his grasp, but I thought overall Maason played well, he's improving each week. Probably, I would say, his best game to date.”

In the performance, Smith recorded four pressures, two tackles for loss, a sack, and a key third-down pass break-up. It was the type of performance that makes one wonder what Smith would look like now if the Jaguars had let him gain valuable game reps throughout the season.

Smith is not one to wonder that, though. Instead, the Jaguars' dynamic defensive tackle is focusing on what he can control.

“I choose not to really worry about that type of stuff—things that are out of my control, uncontrollables. Can't really worry about them just because it’ll tick you off or push you to think any way, or make you feel a certain way about yourself," Smith said on Monday.

"So, I try to stay away from it, putting my mind on the things that are bad or things that haven’t happened for me this season. But every time I go out there, I just put my best foot forward and continue to grow, continue to get better. So, for me it’s just getting the reps. I feel like repetition makes perfection. So just doing it a lot more times helps me out. Ultimately it helped me out in my play yesterday.”

While Smith's play has picked up in a big way -- his eight pressures over the last month are tied for the most among all rookie defensive tacklers, per Pro Football Focus -- he contends that his biggest changes have actually come off the field.

“I really don't think it's much on the field. I always felt that way by myself that I can make plays on this level. I feel like it's more off the field, just really having a process," Smith said.

"I feel like at the beginning of the year, honestly before my ankle injury, I feel like I was kind of winging it to a point. Not necessarily getting in the facility as early as maybe I needed to or just going off of somebody else's routine that—no offense—isn’t where I want to be. So, I had to take it into myself and find my own process and ask guys who have been doing it at a high level for a minute now what their process was and just configure my own, whether that's workouts, eating right, stuff like that.”

Smith will be given two more chances to end his rookie year on a high note. If he does, he will have all of the momentum in the world behind him in 2025.

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