Jacksonville Jaguars: Does T.J. Yeldon still have a spot on the team?
By Luke Sims
The Jacksonville Jaguars need to take a good hard look at T.J. Yeldon and the running back stable and decide if it’s time to move on.
With Melvin Gordon, Todd Gurley, Jay Ajayi, and Ezekiel Elliott completely dominating at points in their brief careers, it’s clear that the selection of T.J. Yeldon in the second round of the 2015 NFL Draft by the Jacksonville Jaguars was a mistake. Most of his peers, including Super Bowl-bound Tevin Coleman, have looked downright dominant at times while Yeldon has struggled to see snaps while other running backs are brought in to compensate.
A moderately decent rookie season may be Yeldon’s saving grace. With 740 yards in 12 games and a 4.1 yards per attempt average, Yeldon looked to have a solid base on which to grow. The Jags weren’t convinced, however, and brought in 2015 Pro Bowl back Chris Ivory to pair with Yeldon. It’s been an unmitigated disaster with Yeldon regressing to 3.6 yards per attempt and just 465 yards in 15 games. Yeldon has just three rushing touchdowns thus far in his career.
Running back is a position where young players can completely dominate. Elliott’s ascendancy and Gurley’s big rookie season before him are great examples. The Dolphins were primarily in the playoff picture because of Ajayi’s complete dominance in some games.
In comparison, Yeldon looks like some sort of liability. In Ryan Day’s running back evaluation over at Big Cat Country, he notes that, ” Yeldon is not a feature back. He’s not even a guy you want sharing carries in a 1-2 punch. And while Ivory can be one of those guys, he’s not all that much better.” That is exactly the concern for the Jags going forward. Yeldon doesn’t have the flash to be the secondary member of a two-back approach and he doesn’t have the durability and consistently high performance to be a workhorse. The Jags could grind him to exhaustion, but it likely won’t yield high enough returns to justify it.
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I am also in agreement with Day that the Yeldon will definitely be back in 2017, but that doesn’t mean he’s worth keeping around in the long term. He hasn’t shown enough to justify his spot, especially when running backs are expected to be productive if they come in the early rounds. The competition from late-round or undrafted running backs makes the position’s value (especially high picks) deflated. He needs to justify his draft position with each game and he hasn’t done so to this point.
The Jags would be wise to seriously consider running back as a top priority in free agency and the 2017 NFL Draft. Yeldon’s place is uncertain and the team continues to struggle in finding the solution for the running game. Neither Yeldon or Ivory even came close to 1000 yards in 2016.
It’s a sorry situation, especially since Yeldon already appears to be a clear whiff for general manager Dave Caldwell. Hopefully the evaluations under Tom Coughlin – who brought in some Jags legend Fred Taylor – will yield better talent that can replace Yeldon if need be.