Calvin Johnson reportedly a target of the Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars made a big splash by trading for Marcell Dareus this past weekend, but they are also reportedly looking at Calvin Johnson.

The trade deadline in the NFL usually isn’t very exciting, but teams are becoming more and more willing to make deals as the salary cap balloons up.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have spent years hoarding cap space and they’ve been judiciously signing a few large free agent deals here and there.

With the team at 4-3 and a very clear path to win the division, it appears executive vice president of football operations Tom Coughlin wants to win now.

The Jaguars made a splash on Friday evening by trading for former All Pro defensive tackle Marcell Dareus (and his enormous contract), and now Chris Mortensen is reporting that the Jaguars would be in the market for former Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson.

To be clear, Johnson technically isn’t a “former” Detroit Lion as the team still owns his rights while he is retired, but there’s a good chance the Lions would shop the future hall of fame receiver around if he wanted to come back.

The Jaguars need help at receiver, even with rookie Dede Westbrook slated to return after the bye week. Losing Allen Robinson in the first week of the season has hamstrung the passing offense and it’s clear that Blake Bortles misses having that big receiver who consistently wins 50-50 balls.

Blake is coming off perhaps his best game of the season against the Indianapolis Colts, but he’s struggled over the last two years against above-average defenses. Calvin Johnson won’t fix all of the woes on offense, but he’d be a terrific security blanket and a potent redzone option.

This is a rumor and the likelihood of it is low, but this is yet another sign that the team is serious about winning now.