2025 NFL Draft: Trade Down Would Be Ideal For Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars will have their fair share of appealing options when they are on the clock in next month's NFL Draft.

Sitting at No. 5 overall, it is hard to imagine the Jaguars won't have bountiful options in terms of adding a game-changer to their roster.

But would the Jaguars' best option actually be not picking at No. 5 at all?

In an ideal scenario, the Jaguars would be able to flip the No. 5 pick for extra draft picks both in 2025 and beyond. Even with elite talents like Travis Hunter, Abdul Carter or Mason Graham potentially sitting there, the Jaguars could improve their roster more efficiently with more picks.

It is a simple concept that has been proven more and more true with each passing draft. Oftentimes, the team that is moving down in the draft is the one that comes away with the most value.

Simply put, the draft is too much of a crapshoot and inexact science to bank so many resources into one player. This isn't to say trade ups never work out, but it is always more valuable to move down the board and pick up more selections.

The Jaguars have proven this true in back-to-back drafts. The process to trade down twice and land Anton Harrison in 2023 was impressive. But the process to trade down, land Brian Thomas Jr. and pick up two picks in the first four rounds for 2025 was even better,

If the Jaguars were to somehow get so lucky at No. 5 as to leverage a team and force them to make a disadvantageous trade, the Jaguars and their new regime would be big winners.

And with new general manager James Gladstone at the helm, it sure seems like he would be open to adding to his stockpile.

"Yeah, the short of it is there's talent in a lot of key spots, and with the amount of draft capital that we have at our disposal over the next two seasons, it's really exciting about what we can do there, especially knowing that that's the highest volume of draft capital that exists for any team in the NFL over the next two years," Gladstone said last month.

"We're coming off two cycles with the Los Angeles Rams where that was the exact same case: 24 picks over the last two drafts. So really this is a dynamic that I'm uniquely positioned to navigate and really looking forward to utilizing as a means of continuing to develop this roster.”

It remains to be seen just how the draft will play out. But if the Jaguars are lucky, they will be getting offers for the No. 5 pick to ensure Gladstone and co. have more darts to throw.

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