Jaguars may have found a clever solution to replace Devin Lloyd

The Jacksonville Jaguars earned scrutiny in free agency for not doing enough to replace linebacker Devin Lloyd, who signed a three-year, $45 million deal with the Carolina Panthers. Then, the draft came, and they waited until the seventh round to add a linebacker when they chose Parker Hughes. With the regular season just around the corner, the Jags don't have a clear-cut replacement for Lloyd.

Part of the reason Jacksonville didn't bring in reinforcements at linebacker was that Ventrell Miller was expected to replace Lloyd. However, Branson Combs emerged in the offseason program and challenged Miller for the starting job next to Foyease Oluokun.

Both Miller and Combs have flashed, but neither has done enough to win the job. That's led head coach Liam Coen to come up with an ingenious way to fill the void at linebacker.

The Jaguars will lean on Ventrell Miller and Branson Combs to replace Devin Lloyd

Liam Coen met with the local media following the loss to the Carolina Panthers in Week 2 of the preseason. He said that he's pleased with what Ventrell Miller and Branson Combs have done, noting that both of them will have a role for the Jaguars next season.

"Yeah, I think at some point here, like we're all gonna understand they're both gonna play," Coen told reporters ( 5:34 mark). "Like they're both very different players, they both have different skill sets. I think you guys know what those skill sets are and what they're both good at. Whoever ends up being No. 1 on the depth chart is obviously semantics in a lot of ways. I was pleased with Ventrell. I've been pleased with him for over the last few days. I thought he had a good joint as well."

Coen continued, "But we're going to need both of them, and we're going to need both of those guys to play significant snaps for us within their roles, and with how the game on defense needs to be called and the offenses we're seeing, the situations that we're in, we're going to need them both. So whoever ends up as number one, it's going to end up being a lot of reps from both."

When you take into account that Jacksonville used the "or" designation for Miller and Combs on the unofficial depth chart, Coen's comments don't come as a surprise. Then again, the expectation was that one was going to separate himself. But it looks like the Jags will lean on both at least early in 2026.

The Jaguars are confident Ventrell Miller and Branson Combs will come through

Now, Liam Coen and general manager James Gladstone come from the Los Angeles Rams school of building a roster. This is noteworthy because the Rams don't usually put a premium on the linebacker position. Based on how things are playing out, it seems like Gladstone brought this approach to the Jaguars.

This doesn't mean that the Jags are just going to plug in anyone at linebacker, but rather that they're going to prioritize other positions. This is a long-winded way to say that Jacksonville wasn't going to give Devin Lloyd a top-market contract or allocate substantial resources to replace him.

Having said that, Branson Combs and Ventrell Miller are far from pushovers. In fact, there's a chance one of them will rise just like Lloyd did last year. It's easy to forget it now, but Lloyd hadn't been particularly great before 2025, and it wasn't until he showed out last season that his stock skyrocketed. It's possible that either Combs or Miller will follow in his footsteps.

The bottom line is that it's too early to assess whether the Jaguars will miss Devin Lloyd in 2025, but they're confident that the duo of Ventrell Miller and Branson Combs is up to the task of filling his shoes.

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