Doug Marrone Explains Jabaal Sheard's Departure to Giants

Jacksonville Jaguars Head Coach Doug Marrone explained the decision behind not protecting veteran defensive end Jabaal Sheard on the teams roster and seeing him traded to the New York Giants. It revolves around the return of Josh Allen.

On Sunday afternoon, despite a 34-16 loss to the Detroit Lions, the Jacksonville Jaguars defense had a bit of promise in newly signed defensive end Jabaal Sheard. After being elevated from the practice squad for the game, Sheard led the team with three pressures on 15 official snaps.

By Tuesday afternoon, Sheard was packing his bags and heading for the upper east coast, having been signed off the Jags practice squad to the New York Giants active roster. Other than the Giants having interest in the veteran pass rusher, the move came about, according to head coach Doug Marrone, largely because of what the staff feels will happen with second-year defensive end Josh Allen over the next few days.

DE Jabaal Sheard has terminated his practice squad contract with the Jaguars to sign with the Giants

Details: https://t.co/xxQQ62NTJw

Presented by @primepoint pic.twitter.com/UoWEiCTwZG

— New York Giants (@Giants) October 20, 2020

First, a bit of background.

On game day, NFL teams can call up two players from the practice squad, bringing the game day roster from 46 players to 48 players. This is the standard practice squad elevation spot, and is how Sheard played with the Jaguars on Sunday. Players who are elevated to the roster are not subject to waivers when they go back to the practice squad, though they are still free to be signed off of practice squads by other teams just as they would be in any other situation.

Teams can use this elevated practice squad spot on a player twice in a season. After two times, if they would like to call them up again, they must terminate the practice squad contract and sign the player to a NFL player contract.

When a player is called up to the active roster with the elevated practice squad spot, they are considered under that umbrella until 4pm Eastern on the business day following the game. After that deadline, teams must sign them to the active roster or they can “protect" up to four practice squad players a week from being signed off the squad to another team’s active roster.

“He’s a veteran guy,” Marrone said of Sheard, “he's been around a long time and you know we brought him in, you know, the thought process was ‘hey let's bring him in just to make sure we cover ourselves with Josh Allen, you know what I am saying, being out.”

Allen missed the last two games with a knee injury. But on Monday, Marrone told reporters that Allen “had a good day this morning, so I’m really thinking that he’s trending on being able to play this week.”

As such, the club decided not to place the protective label on Sheard.

“We looked at okay, well Josh is gonna be coming back, so you know, how can we get him snaps and, you know, keep  K’Lavon [Chaisson] going and [Dawuane] Smoot and a couple of the other guys so we we couldn't really, you know, guarantee a lot of snaps and you know, a veteran guy is gonna make a move where, you know, he can go there and get increased playing time.”

The Jaguars travel to the West Coast this weekend to take on the Los Angeles Chargers (1-4), facing off against former head coach and current Chargers defensive coordinator Gus Bradley and rookie quarterback Justin Herbert.