David Garrard the biggest draft steal in Jacksonville Jaguars history

There aren’t too many options to choose from, but David Garrard has a good case for being the biggest draft steal in the history of the Jacksonville Jaguars.

As the draft creeps into the horizon, we are running out of annual draft trope articles. One we haven’t seen yet is a thorough discussion of draft steals.

Ryan Wilson over at CBS Sports endeavored to fix that in his recent piece, as he worked his way through every team to determine their biggest draft steal in franchise history. I’m not sure what his exact criteria for a “steal” is, but it appears he only considers players drafted after the third round.

With that, it’s not too surprising to see that Wilson went with objectively the second most successful quarterback in franchise history:

"David Garrard, QB, 2002 fourth-round pickThe Jaguars considered Garrard a backup when they drafted him, and that helps explain why they used a top-10 pick on Byron Leftwich in 2003. But by 2006, Garrard had won the job outright, and he remained the Jags’ No. 1 quarterback until 2010. In that time, he led Jacksonville to one playoff appearance — in 2007 — that included a road win against the Steelers. For his career, Garrard was 39-37, completing 62 percent of his passes for 16,003 yards, 89 touchdowns and 54 interceptions.Other candidates: Seth Payne (fourth round), Josh Scobee (fifth round), Rob Meier (seventh round)."

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If the earliest round Wilson is considering is the 4th round, then this is a perfectly fine selection. I would argue that you can still get a “steal” in the 2nd and 3rd round – opening up the discussion to guys like Maurice Jones-Drew,

Daryl Smith

, and

Rashean Mathis

– but it’s obviously more impressive to find contributors in the mid-to-late rounds.

David Garrard is probably a little bit underappreciated at this point, considering the disturbing lack of success the Jaguars have fumbled into since letting him go. Most fans thought the team broke through their quarterback spell with Blake Bortles, but that isn’t looking too good right now. Garrard may not have ever been a spectacular, consistent playmaker, but he was a good game manager that led this team to it’s only playoff win in the last decade and a half.