5 players the Jacksonville Jaguars were right to move on from in 2022

No. 4 player the Jaguars were right to move on from – Carlos Hyde, RB.

Back when the Jags signed running back Carlos Hyde in free agency, it didn’t look like a bad idea. The veteran would in theory back James Robinson, who was coming off a productive year. Alas, it ended up being a questionable move in practice.

A second-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2014 draft, Hyde had averaged more than four yards per carry throughout his career and had logged a 1,000-yard season as recently as 2019. He would have been a solid complementary back but the team’s brass went on to select Travis Etienne with the 25th pick in last year’s draft, pushing him down the depth chart.

Etienne suffered an injury in preseason and Hyde became the primary backup at running back. That didn’t seem to be an issue until Urban Meyer showed blatant favoritism for him and started to progressively give him more playing time at the expense of Robinson even though the latter was the better player of the two. Sure, Hyde played for Meyer at Ohio State but this is the NFL and you can’t simply favor someone just because you happen to know them. In the end, Meyer begrudgingly reinstated Robinson as the starter after benching him but the damage was done.

Hyde suffered a concussion in Week 14 and missed the last four games of the season. He finished the year with 72 rushes for 253 yards and one touchdown. All things considered, his second stint in Jacksonville wasn’t much better than the first one.