1 Jacksonville Jaguars trade that will begin to help this year

The Jacksonville Jaguars were one of the best teams in the NFL down the stretch in 2022. Their hot ending allowed them to become the AFC South champions.

They also won a playoff game after trailing by 27 points. Following that, they were defeated by the eventual Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs by a slim margin.

A year like that will give a lot of people hope and it should. They were in a learning year and still managed to do that much winning. Now that Trevor Lawrence and some of his teammates have this experience under their belt, they can expand on it going forward.

Part of helping them do that would be general manager Trent Baalke doing things to improve the roster. He certainly has been doing that for a while now but this off-season is going to be seen as very important. He may have already made a trade that will help the team big time.

The Jacksonville Jaguars need this guy to play well for them in 2023.

During the 2022 regular season, Baalke made a risky trade to acquire a very good wide-receiver that couldn't play for them at the time. He pulled off a deal with the Atlanta Falcons to acquire Calvin Ridley who was suspended for gambling on games.

Since the end of the 2022-23 season, Ridley has been reinstated by the National Football League. That is great news for the Jaguars as they are now getting a very good receiver for their offense. This trade will begin to help them in 2023.

Trevor Lawrence is someone that can be known as a top-five quarterback by the time that the 2023-24 season ends. Having as many weapons as possible could help him achieve that status and Ridley is a very good weapon.

Atlanta took Ridley in the first round (26th overall) so big things are expected with his talent. He was really rising after his first 1000 yard season (2020). The two years (his first in the NFL) before that were solid as well. He showed that he could become a star.

He got to play in five games in 2021 (he had the aforementioned suspension in 2022) so you can't look at his stats from that season as a true judgement of the player.

If Ridley is able to join this team after some time away from the NFL, their offense could take another step which is very important.