In a World of NFL Scaredy-Cats, Be a Jaguar

You can call the strategy whatever you want. F--- Them Picks, Going All In—it doesn’t really matter. Most of this is simply narrative building and projecting; we put a mythos and a meaning on everything. We analyze and we hyper analyze.

The truth is much simpler: Some NFL general managers are in the business of appearing smart and staying employed. You know the type. Using the big ole words. Calling human beings assets and sitting on their tiny little hands at the trade deadline, holding on to good players they’ll never develop amid a bad season, or pretending it’s not worth chasing talent to improve a team that, in their eyes, is already good enough. It’s speculative fiction at best, but when you make it sound like the same finance pages your owner reads in the Wall Street Journal, it’s both palatable for your jet-setting boss and too far over our heads to comprehend (so it must be good).

And some general managers want to win. Thank goodness the Jaguars found themselves one of the latter, James Gladstone, who sits first pew in the church of Rams GM Les Snead. Snead was always uncomfortable with the idea that he was some kind of reckless poker player, and it’s true that there’s some nuance to this thing. The Rams win because all the other mid- to late-round picks that aren’t traded for established stars turn out to be Kobie Turner and Puka Nacua and Byron Young and Tyler Davis. But it’s also true that the Rams are wholly unafraid to try and fail. To not be the team that wins the trade analytics. To put themselves into the squirmy position where anything less than a Super Bowl is a massive disappointment. To play Madden, for God’s sake, and embrace the possibilities of the here and now.

Which brings us to Monday, one day ahead of the trade deadline. The Jaguars needed two defensive tackles—one before DaVon Hamiton tore his quad and certainly two afterward. They also needed a safety after Eric Murray’s season-ending elbow injury. And, you’ll never guess this, but Gladstone traded for a pair of defensive tackles and a safety: Jessie Bates III for a second-round pick and a fifth-round pick; Davon Godchaux for a conditional sixth-round selection; and then Jordan Davis, the reason we’re all here, for a first-round pick next season and a second-round pick in 2029.

You’ll read everywhere that Jacksonville overpaid like the Bears overpaid for Jeffery Simmons (even though elite defensive tackles are one of the NFL’s lone remaining unicorn positions, with far fewer in existence than there are franchises). You’ll read about Davis’s value in relation to the top end of the defensive tackle market and his pressure rate at every stage of his blessed life since high school. You’ll read about the genius of Eagles GM Howie Roseman, which is most certainly true. Roseman is one of the good ones. He watched his first-string quarterback go down, franchise right tackle retire and 64th offensive coordinator this decade flail, and threw up his hands on the 2026 operation. He also had another defensive tackle, Moro Ojomo, that was so good and so sought after that it made Davis expendable.

But at the end of the day, Davis was probably the best defensive tackle Gladstone could get his hands on after Simmons was already off the market. The Jaguars will be seriously contending for the Super Bowl because of it. Other teams that needed players and chose not to acquire them will not.

The Jaguars’ mascot rappels into the stadium. — Bold. Daring. Jaguars. | Action Images via Reuters

At the end of the day, it’s on us to place more of a premium on earned relevance based on victories and stop applauding administrative nonsense that leads to nothing but the flaunting of their self-important understanding of some exploitable formula attached to the corner of a rulebook. I can go back to each and every season of the NFL I’ve covered since 2010 and discuss the teams that, through a painful amount of overthinking and wishcasting, excited us the most. We can then juxtapose that with the teams that did what it took to win the damn thing. The Seahawks added Duane Brown one year, Leonard Williams another year and Rashid Shaheed last year. Swing on top of swing and, eventually, a Super Bowl. The Eagles added A.J. Brown one year, Saquon Barkley in another, Jaelan Phillips after that. Swing after swing after swing and, in there somewhere, multiple trips to the Super Bowl and another Lombardi in the trophy case. The Chiefs before that, the Rams before that, the Buccaneers—Tom Brady? Hell yeah—before that. Every season, a swing. A declaration that it’s worth the effort.

It’s easy for Roseman to be forgiven now because he has previously completed the task. His Eagles had the kind of victory that can never be taken away. How many of these other general managers out there can say that? How many of them are bragging about the marginal gains they’re making in the NFL equivalent of the penny stock market instead?

The Jaguars matter. They deserve to be taken seriously at 6–2, toward the top of the AFC. And if the directive wasn’t already entirely clear, certainly it is now. If the Jaguars don’t win the Super Bowl, they’ll know they went down trying. If the Jaguars win the Super Bowl, we can trace the corkboard back to this very moment. When the trophy’s in the case, I don’t think we’ll do much fussing about how a nickel cornerback from some MAC school that is still available in Mel Kiper’s top 15 at pick No. 31 could’ve really alter Jacksonville’s future in 2027.

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