The Jacksonville Jaguars will undergo a rebuild in the upcoming months. After firing Doug Pederson, they also realized general manager Trent Baalke needed to go and gave him the boot. While there's a chance the Jags will figure things out, Trevor Lawrence may not be thrilled to be part of an overhaul. That's led Dan Orlovski of ESPN to come up with a head-scratching solution.
Orlovski was part of a roundtable where he and other talking heads discussed what the Tennessee Titans should do with the first overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. The debate mostly centered on whether the Jaguars' divisional foes should take Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders. However, a puzzling suggestion was made out of the blue.
"Okay, if I were the Titans, I would call the Jacksonville Jaguars and try to trade for Trevor Lawrence," Orlovsky told Stephen A. Smith and Cam Newton. "If I was Trevor Lawrence, I would want the absolute heck out of Jacksonville... I would want the absolute heck out of the mess... If you're Jacksonville, first of all, if I'm Trevor Lawrence, I am spurring this, like if I want out of Jacksonville. And if you're Tennessee, realistically, we're sitting here and we're trying to get all this rebuild."
Orlovsky continued, "And I would be wanting someone to tell you, I think Tennessee's got a decent football roster, better than the first-pick-worthy type roster. Shedeur [Sanders] and I haven't studied Shedeur and Cam [Ward] well enough to make a definitive statement on where exactly I think they might be or whatnot. And Travis Hunter special, you don't matter in that conference unless you get a quarterback. As special as Travis Hunter is, you don't matter."
"So you got to rebuild Trevor Lawrence's mindset and his psyche and his psyche and his confidence. But if I'm Tennessee, and I'm looking at it all, I'm calling Jacksonville and saying, okay, because you don't know what's going on in Jacksonville. It's a mess, right?"
So wait, Orlovski is suggesting that Jacksonville trade their franchise quarterback within the division? You could argue whether Trevor Lawrence has lived up to his generational talent status or the $275 million contract he signed last year. What's not up for debate is that signal-callers don't grow on trees, and you would be moving on from a proven commodity for assets with unspecified value.
Granted, the No. 1 pick is worth a lot, and the Jags would probably get at least two more first-round selections. Having said that, draft picks are as good as the team that uses them. Moreover, the last thing Jacksonville would want is to see Lawrence go to Tennessee and thrive.
Trading Trevor Lawrence is cost-prohibitive for the Jaguars
For the sake of the argument, let's say the Jacksonville Jaguars didn't laugh to their face and hung up the phone if their division rivals gave them the call. Even if they wanted to trade Trevor Lawrence for a package of picks, they wouldn't be able to do it. They could but it would leave the team's cap situation in shambles.
Trading Lawrence (or releasing him) would accelerate his signing bonus the Jags spread in future years to 2025 and leave $203 million in dead money. However you look at it, that's simply not feasible. Heck, you could make the case that having Cam Ward or Shedeur Sanders on a rookie deal would alleviate some of Lawrence's hypothetical cap hit. However, it wouldn't be nearly enough to justify the trade.
The bottom line is that trading Trevor Lawrence is cost-prohibitive and wouldn't be worth it even if they got three first-round selections.