2023 NFL Draft: Jaguars Banking on Profiting From QB Class

With the current over/under on first-round quarterbacks being 4.5, the Jaguars are hoping to benefit in a big way.

The entire story of the 2023 NFL Draft class has been the quarterbacks. 

Who will be the first passer drafted at No. 1 overall? What do the Houston Texans and Indianapolis Colts do? Where does Anthony Richardson land?

The questions have gone around and around, over and over, defining the talk of the class. For teams like the Jaguars who have their franchise quarterback already in place, this is nothing but good news.

"Absolutely it does," Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke said on Thursday when asked if the run on quarterbacks can lead to a better player available for him and the Jaguars at No. 24.

"When you don’t need a quarterback, and there’s four or five of them in the draft that people are coveting, you know at least five guys are going to go up in there, it is going to push everybody back down, and you hope there’s other positions that aren’t real needs of yours that are heavy at the top end, too, because that will continue to push guys down."

In short: let the quarterbacks fly off the board. Let the wide receivers and tight ends, too. 

The Jaguars will likely have at least four quarterbacks go off the board before they pick at No. 24. Alabama's Bryce Young is the favorite to go No. 1, and then Richardson, Ohio State's C.J. Stroud, and Kentucky's Will Levis are all projected to be top-15 picks.

Then there is the wildcard: Tennessee quarterback Hendon Hooker, who has been talked up as a potential first-round pick despite his 2022 ACL injury.

"We need as many guys to go ahead of us as possible, and hopefully we’ll have our pick of two or three guys that we have in mind right now—it’s down to that level—probably two to three guys that we’re really interested in, and we feel like we’ve got a good shot at one of those guys," Baalke said. 

To have that shot, Baalke and the Jaguars are going to need to hope quarterbacks go in a hurry. It didn't happen for them last year, with only one quarterback being selected before their second pick. Now, though, they are likely to be in a much different position. 

"I think the real art is in how you value the later part of the draft and being able to find contributors at that level. If anyone thought that a guy was picked in the seventh round that goes on to be a starter and a Pro Bowl player, you found them, you really didn’t," Baalke said. "The botom line is nobody in the league valued him at that, but that’s why he was still available, right? As Mr. Haley [former NFL player and executive Dick Haley] used to tell me, that’s not great scouting, that’s luck. You just happened to pick him. If you thought he was going to be that guy like Tom Brady [former QB Tom Brady], you would’ve picked him with the first pick in the draft. 

"I think you just put your board together and you really trust the culture fits that you’re looking for because that plays a big role in how they produce, especially those ladder picks. What’s their makeup? How willing are they willing to work? How competitive are they? To overcome what they didn’t have, because if they had it, they would’ve been earlier picks.”