SI’s Bold Jaguars Prediction for 2023 Centers on Calvin Ridley

The 2022 NFL season is officially over. The Kansas City Chiefs are the champions, and the rest of the league is set to spend the 2023 offseason chasing them.

This includes the Jacksonville Jaguars, who walked away from 2022 with a successful season after winning the AFC South championship and a home playoff game. But, just like the rest of the league, the Jaguars are looking up at the Chiefs.

To give an idea of what the landscape of the NFL might look like in 2023, Sports Illustrated’s Conor Orr laid out 32 predictions for next season. This includes a prediction for the Jaguars that could change the complexion of the offense next fall: that Clavin Ridley will have a career-year in every major statistical category.

"Trent Baalke continues his act as a GM Lazarus of sorts, first making us look foolish with the Christian Kirk deal and next by swooping in early ahead of the market on Ridley," Orr wrote.

"Before his suspension for gambling, Ridley was a legitimate, 140-plus target, 1,200-plus-yard receiver for a declining Falcons team. His high upside is an understatement."

Baalke made one of the NFL's most creative moves of the year to acquire Ridley from the Falcons while he was suspended for gambling.

If Ridley is reinstated, the deal will include the 2023 fifth-rounder, but if he isn’t, then it will turn into a sixth-round pick. The 2024 pick will be at least a fourth-rounder if Ridley makes the team. If he hits a play-time milestone, it’ll be a third-rounder. But, if the Jaguars are able to get a long-term deal done, it will be a second-rounder.

“The thought process of trading for him now, well, you’re betting on the future, right? You’re putting resources out there to get a top receiver, caliber-type player in this league, and obviously, it goes back to whenever he gets reinstated," Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said after the Jaguars traded for Ridley.

"The second we can get him in here, it’ll be no different than when we got Zay [Jones] and Christian [Kirk] and all those guys this year. Just getting him the playbook, getting him caught up, and when the offseason program starts, we can go from there.”

Ridley spent his first four seasons in the NFL playing for the Falcons, finishing his tenure with a total of 248 receptions out of 380 attempts for 3,342 yards and 28 touchdowns.

“Trent (Baalke) and I talk a lot about a lot of different situations, and we obviously talked about this one. You guys have heard us talk about this before, we’re going to always look to add talent to this roster any way possible, any way, shape, form, and I feel like we’ve done that," Pederson said.

"Obviously we won’t know what we have until the league clears him and all that, and we understand that. At the same time, I feel like we’re getting a really good football player to already add him to a good room. Great leaders in that room that will embrace him when he finally gets here.”

If Ridley can have a career season in 2023, then that means the trade was a rousing success and Trevor Lawrence has a legitimate No. 1 receiver. The Jaguars and Pederson already showed the ability to get the most out of their pass-catchers in 2022, with Kirk, Jones and Evan Engram all having career-years.

Check out Orr’s other 31 predictions here.