When Devin Lloyd exploded onto the national radar and reached his potential last season, he created a massive problem for the Jacksonville Jaguars.
In the Doug Pederson era, Lloyd was an underperforming former first-rounder who played a position with fairly cut-and-dried metrics to evaluate him by. Then, in his first season under Anthony Campanile, he blossomed into a star contributor to a league-leading defense that would hate to see him go.
For what it's worth, Lloyd revealed that the franchise made him an offer to consider, but he didn't divulge the numbers. Either way, it wasn't enough to keep the athletic defender from becoming a Carolina Panther.
Letting the former Utah Ute walk wouldn't be such a risky move if the Jags spent premium capital on replacing him and his production. However, Gladstone and the rest of his staff decided to lean on what they already have and take a freakishly athletic pass-covering linebacker out of Middle Tennessee State named Parker Hughes near the end of the seventh round.
But the time for complaining about the past has ended, as Ventrell Miller only needed one day to legitimize the front office's faith in his potential to lead Jacksonville's defense forward.
Ventrell Miller shows at Jaguars OTAs that he could be the perfect response to Devin Lloyd's exit
In an article breaking down some of the biggest winners from Day 1 of Jacksonville's OTAs, Sports Illustrated's John Shipley had a lot to say about the elephant in the room on the defensive side of the ball:
"No projected starter on the Jaguars depth chart has more to prove before Week 1 than Ventrell Miller. He has big shoes to fill after Devin Lloyd left for the Carolina Panthers in free agency, and the Jaguars' lack of offseason moves at the linebacker position has proven the Jaguars are pushing their chips in on Miller in his fourth season, Shipley wrote."
James Gladstone's roster-building strategy has been hard to pin down throughout his tenure. Instead of constantly trying to find future stars during Year 1, the former Los Angeles Ram flooded the bottom of the roster and took shots on high-tier role players who had a chance to become reliable impact starters (e.g. Jakobi Meyers, Jourdan Lewis, etc.). To be honest, the only exception to this approach was the Les Snead-like trade he made to get Travis Hunter with the second-overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft.
Heading into Year 2, I expected Gladstone to continue exploring what the power of the big chair had to offer and take some more risks. Instead, he stayed put and was patient throughout the draft and free agency. Now that we're here, it's clear that players like Miller will need to step up if the Jags plan to be anywhere close to the playoff hunt come December.
According to Shipley's analysis, the former Gator "certainly got off to a good start at Tuesday's OTAs, coming up with some impressive plays in pass [coverage] and looking more than comfortable in the middle of Campanile's defense. Miller was arguably the defensive standout of the day, and this is exactly what the Jaguars are likely hoping to see at this point in the offseason."
If true, this is great news for all of us. The media will get another breakout star to write about, the Jaguars will field another anchor for their defense, and Miller will set himself up for a heck of a payday as he enters the last season of a rookie contract that was worth less than $5 million over a four-year span.
That last part may already have the front office sweating, because their decision to double down this offseason left them with no depth at all. Another surprise All-Pro campaign from one of the last remnants of the Trent Baalke regime would put the Jags right back where they were before the league year began. It's still early, so we'll all be keeping an eye on how this storyline develops.
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