Jacksonville Jaguars offseason a ‘B+’ according to Bill Barnwell

The Jacksonville Jaguars had some huge holes heading into the offseason after a rough 2015 campaign, and they seemingly filled most of them. But not everyone thinks it was a perfect offseason.

After the worst defensive performance over an entire season in franchise history, the Jaguars needed an influx of talent on defense to shore up one of the worst units in the league. General manager David Caldwell had a lot of resources to do just that – the most salary cap room in the NFL and a full complement of high draft picks.

With the dust all but settled, it’s hard not to thrilled with what the Jaguars did – they essentially had a perfect offseason.

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Not everyone thinks so however, including ESPN’s resident NFL expert Bill Barnwell.

Barnwell is easily one of the best football writers out there and he does a great job year round of analyzing football through the lens of advanced metrics with some game tape mixed in. One thing he tends to do however is nitpick what are ultimately meaningless things. He did so again with the Jaguars in his AFC South offseason grades piece, giving the Jaguars a ‘B+’.

Unsurprisingly, Barnwell praised the Jaguars for getting value and high-level talent in the draft.

"After last year, when the Jaguars drafted Dante Fowler Jr. No. 3 overall and promptly saw their edge rusher tear his ACL on the first day of minicamp, you could forgive the Jaguars for getting a little lucky on draft day… Jalen Ramsey, fell to the Jaguars at five.. Then, of course, the Jaguars got close enough to Myles Jack in the second round that they made the rare trade up that everybody seems to agree on, sending a fifth-round pick to Baltimore to move up two spots and grab the former UCLA star."

Barnwell almost universally hates trading up in the draft under any circumstance, but even he couldn’t fault the Jaguars for pouncing on Jack in the second round.

Barnwell was also a fan of the Jaguars free agency acquisitions… at least most of them.

"Malik Jackson was likely an overpay at five years and $85.5 million, but he’s a massive upgrade as a 5-technique defensive lineman and was widely regarded as the best defensive player available on the market. Tashaun Gipson wasn’t at his best last year, but he’s a legitimate ball hawk and was a Pro Bowler in 2014 at 23 years old. You don’t need to project much to imagine each of them being impact players next season."

Getting two of the best free agents on the market is hard to be negative about. Barnwell might have had the most praise however for the move to get Kelvin Beachum.

"The Jaguars could have left Joeckel there, delivered some buzzwords in public about how he needed to play better and hoped Bortles knows how to duck. Instead, they recognized Joeckel as a sunk cost and acted accordingly to fill a weakness. They signed Beachum, the former Steeler coming off a torn ACL after a wildly effective 2014 campaign, to a team-friendly deal."

Amidst all the positives, Barnwell still found time to nitpick, chastising the Jaguars for signing Chris Ivory to big money.

"Every single warning sign goes off when you consider the Ivory signing. The Jaguars have repeatedly failed to identify running back talent under Caldwell and Bradley. They signed Gerhart, which I promised not to dwell on earlier. After he flamed out, they used a second-round pick on T.J. Yeldon with the hopes of the Alabama star becoming their featured back. One year later, even as they publicly suggested that Yeldon was their starter, the Jaguars seemed to lose faith in Yeldon and gave Ivory a five-year, $32 million deal with $10 million guaranteed."

This analysis is borderline myopic, something that doesn’t happen often with Barnwell. Yes, the Jaguars overpaid for Ivory but it just doesn’t matter – they still have an absurd amount of cap space available, and Ivory is only really a financial burden for 2 years.

Additionally, Barnwell is the only person I’ve seen latch on to this contrived narrative that the Jaguars don’t have faith in T.J. Yeldon anymore. Yeldon was solid last year, but he got injured and had some nagging injuries. The Jaguars most definitely have plans for Yeldon, but they aren’t to run him into the ground as the lone option in the backfield. Yeldon showed significant promise catching the ball out of the backfield and can carry the load if need be, but it’s prudent to have two legitimate running backs on the roster.

If anything, the biggest disappointment of the Jaguars’ offseason was not signing Olivier Vernon.

The Jaguars offseason deserves a solid ‘A’. Few teams in recent memory have overhauled one side of the ball as dramatically as the Jaguars have on defense this year.