Jacksonville Jaguars: There’s a young core of playmakers in place

The Jacksonville Jaguars have some playmakers despite 1-8 record.

We aren’t going to embellish this one, the Jacksonville Jaguars are what their 1-8 record says they are, a bad football team without much direction and in dire need of talent. However, their record doesn’t show that they have recently acquired plenty of talented players.

Adding talent via draft hasn’t been a strength of this Jacksonville team in the last decade. The team’s brass has repeatedly squandered the chance to add franchise players in the first round of the draft and has selected a bunch of duds in the process.

None of the Jaguars’ first-round picks from 2010 to 2017 are currently on their roster and defensive tackle Taven Bryan, their 2018 first-round selection, hasn’t shown anything to make the team feel like his part of their long-term plans.

These recent years have been different for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Although the Jaguars track record of adding play makers is subpar, they have actually added a few impact players in the last three years. The team’s 2018 draft class hasn’t been precisely fruitful, but wide receiver D.J. Chark Jr. is a keeper. We can say the same about their first-round pick in 2019, Josh Allen. Despite the fact the edge defender hasn’t been fully healthy in 2020, he’s still been solid.

Chark and Allen aren’t the only contributors the ‘Jags’ have acquired in the players’ selection proceess. In fact, their 2020 draft class is arguably the best one in recent years. Although defensive end has been quiet this season, first-round cornerback C.J. Henderson has shown flashes of talent and recorded a forced fumble and a pass defensed against the Packers. The same is true for third-round defensive tackle DaVon Hamilton, who is quickly establishing himself as a key cog in the team’s defensive line.

Moreover, a couple of playmakers seemed poised to become a big part of the the team’s offense. Wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr.  has had a solid rookie season and James Robinson is among the running backs in the NFL. Against the Packers, he had his third 100-yard game of the season. Moving forward, he should be a candidate of the 2020 Offensive Rookie of the Year award.

If the Jaguars want to change their furtunes and get out of the NFL’s cellar, they will have to undergo many changes. That doesn’t mean that they have to part ways with everybody, it just means that they have to surround their current young core of difference-makers with more talented players.