James Gladstone Had Vision For Jaguars Draft Pick Months Ago

Jacksonville Jaguars general manager James Gladstone has been after Bhayshul Tuten for a long time.

In the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, Gladstone and the Jaguars brought Tuten in as one of their newest weapons. But, as Gladstone noted following the pick, Tuten is actually a player who was on his radar when he first interviewed for the Jaguars' job several months ago.

James Gladstone presented Bhayshul Tuten's name as a priority target on Day 3 during his two interviews with the Jaguars to become their GM pic.twitter.com/08PYmloWYU
— Josh Norris (@JoshNorris) April 26, 2025

Considering Tuten was one of the draft's biggest winners from the NFL Scouting Combine after a 4.32 40-yard dash, which makes it somewhat surprising he was even available in the fourth round for the Jaguars to pursue.

But he was, and Gladstone was able to land one of his favorite targets in the entire draft.

"Yeah, so with that, those are things that you're projecting and aren't always accurate. That's pre-combine, which typically testing is going to play a major part in where a player ends up getting selected. I must say once Tuten ran that 40, I don't know that I would have guessed that he would be available on Day 3, but nonetheless, he found himself there taken off pretty quickly at 104," Gladstone said after the draft.

"So we were jacked to be able to be in that position to prioritize him because at the end of the day we want to level up the competition across the entirety of the roster, and running back is a spot that we're going to lean on. As Liam can probably allude to, it's so rarely just a one-person spot. It's going to take a collective effort, just like the draft did. We look forward to the group as a whole in addition to LeQuint [Allen, Jr.] coming in and making this thing as rounded as it possibly can be.”

Tuten will be expected to compete for snaps in the running back room right away, as it is clear the Jaguars are placing plenty of value on his home-run hitting ability.

"If you look at [Bhayshul] Tuten with the ability to strike from a distance. He can get to the second or third level and score from anywhere on the field," Jaguars head coach Liam Coen said.

"I think behind the line of scrimmage, forced missed tackles was through the roof for him in terms of getting back or at least getting yards after that contact behind the line of scrimmage."

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