Will Jaguars' Draft Pick Spell Bad News For AFC Foe?

It is clear there is an appetite for Boise State running back Ashton Jeanty in the top-10 of the 2025 NFL Draft.

For months, most have mocked Jeanty to the Las Vegas Raiders at No. 6 overall. And on Friday, Raiders general manager John Spytek waxed poetic about why he would not be against taking a running back this early in the draft.

“I’m going to be careful about talking about any specific player,” Spytek said. “But, more broadly to the running back question, I mean, we just saw Saquon Barkley just change the Eagles in one year. Now they had a great team around him, and it was adding an elite player. I think when you sit where we sit, the idea is to add elite players at any position. I don’t try to devalue any certain position.

“There’s times in games where there’s nobody you’d rather have than the best kicker in the league, too, right, in that moment. There’s certain ways to build a team, and I don’t know where we got to a place where we feel like running backs aren’t valued. I come from the University of Michigan to my core, and those guys were certainly really valued there, and it’s hard for me to get away from that.”

While the Raiders could have their eye elsewhere, it feels like a safe assumption Jeanty will be near the top of their list. But could the Jaguars change that?

NFL Network's Daniel Jeremiah believes the Jaguars are a team that could easily snipe Jeanty ahead of the Raiders' selection, at least based on the way the Jaguars are presenting their message ahead of the draft.

"As we come down the homestretch -- and maybe I'm reading too much into it, but when I listen to the guys in Jacksonville talk. You listen to the h ead coach and the general manager discuss what they're looking for in a player. They talk about a statement pick and the first pick of their new regime there and valuing the things that they're valuing in terms of the character, the competitiveness, all those things, I'm like, golly, that sounds like two players to me," Jeremiah said.

"That sounds like Ashton Jeanty, and that sounds like Jalon Walker. I would not rule out the possibility that Jeanty went ahead of that pick, and then he's off the board."

We will find out soon just how serious the Jaguars' interest in Jeanty could be, but it sure looks like more and more mock drafts are slotting the Boise State star to Duval.

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