Draftees the Jaguars regret ignoring in favor of Jay Tufele in the 2021 NFL Draft

The 2021 NFL Draft has been one of the best the Jacksonville Jaguars have had in years. Even when you leave aside Trevor Lawrence, they came out with a pretty good haul. With their second first-round pick, they selected the quarterback's partner in crime at Clemson, running back Travis Etienne. But the Jags also had success in the later rounds of the draft.

That year, Jacksonville had two selections in the second round. With the first one, they chose cornerback Tyson Campbell, who's become a mainstay of the secondary. They then selected Walker Little, who has fared well when called upon.

If that wasn't enough, the Jags later took safety Andre Cisco in the third round. Simply put, they found many of their building blocks in that draft. Having said that, they did have a few misses. One of them was defensive tackle Jay Tufele, who hardly saw action as a rookie and was waived before the start of the 2022 season.

Tufele was claimed off waivers by the Cincinnati Bengals but has struggled to do much of note. He's yet to record a sack in his NFL career and has not played more than 50 percent of the defensive snaps in a season.

You could make the case that Tufele was a fourth-round pick, so missing on him didn't hurt the Jags much. You would be right. On the other hand, there were other players still on the board that they could've drafted instead of him. A few of them, including the next three, would've probably had a bigger impact.

The Jaguars could've drafted Cam Sample in 2021 draft

If the Jags were zeroed in on taking a defensive tackle in the fourth round, they could've gone with Cam Sample, who coincidentally ended up going to the Cincinnati Bengals five picks later after Jay Tufele.

Even though Sample has had a rotational role for the Bengals, he's been more productive than Tufele. He's also gotten a bit more playing time than his teammate but has made better use of it, registering five sacks the past three seasons.

In Jacksonville, Sample wouldn't be more than a rotational piece but there's a chance he would still be on the roster.