Liam Coen, welcome to your first NFL feud as a Head Coach. In the build-up to the game, Robert Saleh was ‘complimenting’ the Jaguars’ defensive sign-stealing and ability to put themselves in an advantageous situation. Saleh later said that he should have chosen his words more carefully, but not before a post-game, on-field verbal rally with Coen whose ‘keep my name outta your mouth’ was a hit with Jags players and fans alike.

So all-in-all, great news for 2026, with Saleh taking over the Titans and getting to see him twice a year.

Overview of the game

Well, we did it again. A third sloppy but deserved win for the Jaguars, whose ‘flashes’ style was still understandable given it was their fourth competitive game under this new regime. I’ll talk about it shortly, but really the game hinged on the Jaguars’ ability to force errors and then punish the 49ers for making those errors.

Part of that high risk high reward play was the theme of the early season on defense: quite easy to march down the field, and when the 49ers did score their points it looked ominous. While Devin Lloyd was hero of the day, with two interceptions and a number of tackles in the game, Arik Armstead had the game-sealing play with a knock-down on former teammate Brock Purdy with just over 3 minutes to play.

3Better

1. Penalties

Whew, there were a lot of penalties on offense here. A season high 8 penalties given away by the Jags. Rumor has it that Walker Little has just false started on his first play of the 2026 season, in July. He was early on a couple…

Beyond Little, there were a few delay of games, which are frustrating because getting in and out of the right play is obviously important but doing it within the time is also very important. Our old friend illegal shift was seen as well, which was a mainstay of the Jags offense before the Bye.

2. Short yardage offense

This is a little bit pernickety as we moved the ball really well in the run game, running for a number of 1^st downs as I’ll talk about below. But there were a couple of occasions, especially in the second half, where we needed something more than we got on 3^rd and short. I understand that Liam Coen wants to be a guy whose team exerts their will on the opponent, whose players step up to dominate, but the game sealing first down play action hit to Hunter Long in the flat was a better option that stuffing it up the middle on 3^rd and short. That being said, maybe the runs up the middle that got stuffed meant the play action was buyable for the defense. Maybe it’s just a hangover from 2024’s miserable run game that I’ve not gotten over.

3. Depth

The previous couple of games had a feeling of a settled down roster. It wasn’t perfect, but there was some semblance of ‘this is our team’. This game, due to a fair few injuries, saw a lot of guys playing who looked like they needed a little more time in the oven. Jack Kiser came in at linebacker and was a tough watch, Rayuan Lane had to come in at safety (and looked alright), Maason Smith had quite a few snaps, Edoga and Van Lanen came in to cover in the line, Tim Patrick was being targeted and Johnny Mundt played over a third of the snaps on offense. The drop off from the guys who would cement their position to some of the guys who would remain on special teams or play as back ups was noticeable.

3 Best

1. Salting wounds

The way that the Jaguars punished the 49ers errors was fantastic. It started with the Dennis Gardeck punch out on former Jag Luke Farrell, which Etienne put away for a 50 yard touchdown. Then the second touchdown off the interception by Lloyd, where the Jaguars drove down the field 13 plays, an enormous play to Travis Hunter from our own endzone effectively, a couple of nice medium length runs back-to-back and ending with another touchdown pass to Hunter Long. We then scored the field goal in the 3^rd quarter off of the second Lloyd interception, and finally icing the game on the back of the fumble on Brock Purdy.

2. Running game

It wasn’t perfect, but it was good. I’ll give the O Line their flowers in the next section, but Etienne was excellent in this game. His movement on the long touchdown run to send the covering DB was *chef’s kiss*, and his ability to find space both in the interior and particularly outside was exactly what this offense needed. Averaging 6.5 yards per carry away from home against the 49ers was really seeing Etienne at his finest.

3. Aggression

Whether it was the build-up, the circumstances or having to contend with beating both the 49ers and ourselves (penalties), the aggression and physicality that we played with was superb. On many of the successful runs, the O Line were moving people to create those gaps for Etienne to exploit. Any time you see running backs going up the middle of the field for chunk plays, it’s a good day for the O Line. Couple that with Chuma Edoga pancaking a DB down the field late in the game. Excellent stuff.

The same has to be said of the defense. Yes, it looked a little easy to move the ball against us, but 3 forced fumbles (2 recovered) and a couple of nice interceptions (including one tipped by Maason Smith) is game-winning work from a set of rushers who were pressuring Purdy all game long.

I think at this point we were riding pretty high on Jaguars football, having come through a tough opening slate of games. Things didn’t get much easier with the next one, though. Monday Night Football vs the Chiefs.

There was only one story going into the first division game of the season: revenge on Azeez Al-Shaair for his illegal and brutal hit on Trevor Lawrence in the 2024 edition; an injury which, combined with a shoulder injury he was playing through, shut down Trevor’s season. However, the Jags didn’t really want to talk about vengeance – it was an inward looking Jaguars, wanting to bounce back from getting picked off at the end of the Bengals game.

Overview of the game

Like the first two games the Jags played, there was a lot more rough than diamonds, particularly on offense. I think sheer physicality and drive won out on the day, encompassed by a Trevor Lawrence scramble in the 4^th quarter where he looked to seek out contact, break a tackle or two before being brought down. It was just a couple of plays before the big one to Brian Thomas Jr, which set up the game-winning drive.

Let’s get into the 3B3B of it all.

3 Better

1. Offensive issues

I don’t want to talk about the penalties (5) or drops (6) here, as they were sort of part and parcel of this team at this point in the season. Rather, some of the other offensive issues that we hadn’t seen at this point. There were a few times in this game where it looked like the players weren’t on the same page: notably on the game-winning drive, where the first play was a quick out to BTJ but he had run 5 yards down the field and he should have not moved from his starting position, or where in the first half Parker Washington gets all the way down the field and Trevor cuts it loose but the ball lands luckily out of range of the safety on one hash mark and Washington is on the other hash mark. Trevor dirted the ball a couple of times too, unhappy with what was happening in front of him.

I also had a look at the interception a couple of times. I think firstly that it’s a mis-read pre-snap: he puts LeQuint Allen in the sniffer position to block. They have 8 on the line of scrimmage, but nobody comes as they only send 4 and he and the center have not much to do. Because of this I think the post-snap read is off and Trevor thinks that the DBs are going to split to cover Strange (in front of Washington) and Hunter deep behind Washington. They do neither and it’s easily intercepted. These things happen, but it’s an example of Trevor’s old tendency to do more than necessary, where he could take an easy completion to Strange but goes for an extra 10 yards to Washington.

2. Travis Hunter: CB

There’s a lot of excitement going into 2026 for Travis Hunter to play more cornerback than he did in 2025. Early in the season, he was sprinkled in at corner and used more offensively. I, too, can’t wait to see him in coverage as CB1 for the Jags this upcoming season – I actually just can’t wait to see him healthy again!

However, this was not a triumph of cornerback play by Hunter in this game. He had a nice tackle of Woody Marks as he tried to bounce out wide on a run in the first half, and a good tackle on Hutchinson in the second half when he was in off coverage and closed the space down nicely. However, he had a couple of other plays that he got beaten on: namely some quick feet on an in-breaker against Nico Collins and a similar thing on 4^th and 4 on the Texans last drive of the game against Kirk where he fell off the tackle too.

I’m not going to be overly critical. I think he very much still can and will be an elite corner in the NFL, and he slotted in quite well in this game. It’s 3 Better, not 3 Bad. He’s fine.

3. TE blocking

Brenton Strange is an excellent football player, and deserved his new contract with the Jags. He was consistently an excellent option in the pass game, both in his route running and his pretty safe hands. However, I do see why the Jaguars wanted to bring in Nate Boerkircher as a primarily blocking tight end. Beyond the pancake at the end of the Panther game, the TE blocking in general was a little suspect, particularly in the run game when helping out a tackle. Chipping in the pass game was good, and the use of the ends in that pass game had been good early in the season, but too many times the edges of the line of scrimmage were getting to the RB as he reached the line.

That being said, this was probably the best defensive line we’d see all season.

3 Best

1. Josh Hines-Allen & D Line play generally

So this is slightly cheating, as I’ve got two in. But I wanted to give massive props to Josh Hines-Allen who really was unstoppable in these first three games of the year. He didn’t always have the numbers to show for it – an issue I believe to be caused by a few too many easy-outs for the QBs we faced – but he was always in Stroud’s face in this game, and I do not understand why he had so many 1-1s with the Texans LT, whom he routinely drove back into CJ Stroud or simply bypassed.

But it wasn’t only his rushing, it was his relentlessness in the run game. On the first Texans play of the second half, Chubb is sent on a run out wide and Hines-Allen spins 270 degrees out of his rush and pursues his man to bring him down before any yards are given up. It’s heroic stuff. How he can cover so much ground so quickly is beyond me.

Beyond JHA though, credit to the rest of the D Line. Hamilton was very strong in this game, including a couple of rush wins and a very late push on Stroud that probably should’ve been flagged… Armstead is so good when stinting as he’s incredibly nimble for a man his size, Walker was relentless in his press and faced multiple double teams. But I’ve had a real fondness for watching Smoot over the first few games. He was our premier interior pass rush partner for Armstead and he really held up, including running down CJ Stroud in the fourth quarter to push him out of bounds on a scramble. I hope we bring him back in 2026 to be a part of the rotation.

2. Jourdan Lewis

I could probably just write about the interception Lewis made in the 4^th quarter, it was such a thing of beauty. He firstly marshals his man on an outbreaking route, but as he’s satisfied with the coverage you can see his head turn to look at Stroud and as Stroud’s arm is back he’s already backpedalling, ready to intercept. It’s a thing of beauty, a real veteran play and I think he’s the forgotten man in this secondary going into 2026 – if he can get and stay fit.

Beyond that play though, he was a menace. He nearly picked Stroud off again on the last drive of the game, with a freakish dive but couldn’t quite make it stick. He also blew up a clever play action screen where Stroud faked a little pitch to Chubb on his right before throwing the screen to Collins who had come in motion to the left. Credit to Hamilton who also didn’t buy the fake toss, but Lewis came crashing in past the blockers and hung on to Collins by the leg as if his life depended on it.

3. Sticking with the run game

The run game was a bit of a tough watch at times. It didn’t really malfunction; there were only a couple of plays where we lost yards. But equally, it didn’t really get going either. Most all of the run plays in the first half were either checked out of, or just for a couple. But in the second half we got back into it and stuck with the run game. In that final drive, after Trevor’s scramble, Etienne took it for consecutive chunk runs, which set up the play for BTJ to collect and run free down the line. Similarly, coming out of the half time break, Etienne carried well to gain some more 6-8 yard runs. It really encapsulated the Jaguars’ intention to out-physical the Texans, and to exert our will on them. The narrative seems to be now that we had a good run game in the first half of last season, but I don’t think that’s the full story. It was more that we stuck with a patchy run game, which afforded us some explosive plays or some chunk plays. In the second half of the season when the pass game got hot, we just passed it more often which reduced the potential for those runs to take off.

Always good to beat your in-division rivals, at home, wearing your swag throwbacks. And nice to send them back to Houston 0-3 as well – that would come in handy at the end of the season.

Going into the game, I remember the talk was all about Ja’Marr Chase and Joe Burrow. It was annoying because we’d played well the previous week and it also was a very Jags media mindset; one used to failure and underperformance. A ‘well we beat a team at our level, how can we possibly play against a team at their level’ mindset, and one which as the season progressed, we saw Liam Coen show a distain for (‘small market team’ vs Broncos).

As mentioned, the Jags in the opener played well, were physical and ruthless. But they weren’t perfect, and it would be a bigger test on the road for a new offense and defense, Head Coach and Coordinators.

Overall review of the game

This game was a reminder of the 2024 season: look good, hang in there, lose on the last drive of the game. Remember, in Doug Petersen’s final season, the Jags set the NFL record for one score losses. The Jags lost 10 of the 13 games by one score. All game long it looked as though we needed to pull away from the Bengals. The Jags had proven good in the previous week at holding the Panthers at arm’s length. We didn’t do that, let them back in the game and ultimately once the questionable DPI was called on 4^th down against Travis Hunter, it was inevitable.

One last thought before we get into the 3 Better, 3 Best is the weird prophesies of the Jags season contained within these early games. I finished last week by saying that the game sort of had everything we would see from the Jaguars in 2025, and this game was much the same, but particularly in relation to the play-off loss to the Bills: going for it on 4^th down and failing, letting the opponent drive down the field at the end of the game, Walker Little letting a pass rusher rush free on the final drive of the game.

3 Better

1. The coverage

Despite what I said about being annoyed at the pre-game talk of how good Ja’Marr Chase is and how we’d stop him, he was excellent and had a day against the Jags’ secondary. As did Tee Higgins. In my view Chase is the best WR in the NFL, and Higgins is top 10 – therefore I think this is probably the strongest 1-2 in the league. The way the Bengals used Chase, particularly after Burrow went down injured in the 2^nd quarter. He was in the screen game, running end-arounds, stretching the field and he was dominant on hitches and outs with his footwork.

It was a sorry day to be Jarrian Jones and Tyson Campbell. They really couldn’t keep pace with Chase or Higgins, including a ludicrous Higgins TD where he waltzed past Campbell and then rode Dewey’s tackle, which did more damage to Campbell than Higgins, and walked into the end zone. Campanile sent a lot of pressure Browning’s way but more often than not he had a quick out to Chase or Higgins against soft coverage (for fear of getting beaten either by physicality or by footwork).

2. Trevor Lawrence

I mentioned last week that I am a Trevor guy, but I don’t think he had a good game in this one. He did some nice things: the opening TD to Brown showed good patience to let the routes develop, a couple of nice deep out routes to Dyami brown in either half, and he looked navigated the pocket well (more kudos to the O-Line for this game). But he also had some poor moments: quite a few of his throws were inaccurate enough for them to be dropped – even the biggest play in the game for the Jags, Parker Washington’s beautiful motioned slant route that went for about 45 yards was a little behind Washington and if it was perfect he might’ve been in for a long TD. Trevor’s performance was sufficient for Liam Coen to lose his rag on the touchline, and for Trevor to tell him to calm down. It looked more ambitious than the Panthers game, but less on the same page.

Just on the interception: at the time it was put down to BTJ pulling out of a route across the middle, but on replay it looked a little like he thought he was to sit in a zone which is why he stopped, and so a miscommunication rather than fear. BTJ actually caught a nice ball across the middle later in the game, so I don’t really give much credence to him being scared.

3. The drops

OK so I’ve just said that Trevor was inaccurate, but a lot of these drops were catchable. I noted 7 drops, with a couple of these arguably good break ups. But a number were important, and I think that’s what sticks in people’s mind more than the number. Dyami Brown has to catch that ball in the end-zone, BTJ has to catch that ball at the end of the game for the 1^st down, Strange has a drop on a ball outside his body but very catchable. We saw the inexperience of Travis Hunter with some imprecise footwork in his break and a timing issue that led to him turning and the ball being on him too quick for a drop.

I don’t think it was epidemic in the team, I do think it was a tight window issue. Trevor, in order to complete a few of these passes, had to fire the ball into the window. I remember something Matthew Stafford said a while ago about when he came into the league almost trying to hurt his receivers with how hard he threw the ball versus now trying to help his receivers. I don’t think Trevor was trying to hurt those guys but I don’t think he was helping them either.

3 Best

1. The takeaways

The Jags won the turnover battle 2-1, but almost threw a couple of extra INTs to lose it. The two Jaguars’ turnovers included one where Ja’Marr Chase and Browning were on the same wavelength as BTJ and Trevor, where Chase stopped and Browning threw it directly to Murray where Chase would’ve been. The second interception was really beautifully caught by Devin Lloyd, though. It reminded me a lot of his interception later in the season against the Colts, where he’s at full extension and the QB just doesn’t even register him. Lloyd also took the ball from the Bengals 30 up to the 12 yard line, setting up the offense’s chance to extend the lead that ended up being the turnover on downs.

Because we had turned the ball over multiple times back-to-back, and because of the really poultry turnovers in 2024, this was the time where we started to see and believe in what the defense was trying to be, despite the soft coverage. It was really feast or famine.

2. The D Line

On watching the replay, I was all ready to all-out praise Travon Walker for a stunning performance. But in reality the whole of the D Line deserves its flowers. True, the edge rushers were excellent. Both Josh Hines-Allen and Travon had their opponents on the ropes for the entire game, but Arik Armstead was also penetrative and DaVon Hamilton was more than stout in the run game. After the merry-go-round of the opener, the D Line had a bit more of a consistent look: JHA, Walker on the edge and Smoot and Armstead on known passing downs, with Hamilton in for rushes and Ogbah and Maason Smith rotating in.

What I would like to highlight, though, is just how much Campanile was comfortable sending Devin Lloyd as a rusher. Both Oluokun and Lloyd were rushing more than I expected, with Lloyd being the additional go-to. There were even times where Lloyd and Armstead were the only interior rushers and Walker and Hines-Allen were left on the outside. Another wrinkle, two games in, is the Swiss-army knife use of Wingard. He rushed a fair bit, lined up as a linebacker a few times, played nickel and in his usual safety spot. While I don’t think he was elite at any of the spots, he was good enough in all to merit a shout-out. Remember, this was an organization that prioritized versatility in the roster.

3. Bhayshul Tuten

We didn’t see too much of Tuten in the opener. Indeed, LeQuint Allen got action earlier than him, in pass protection, receiving and rushing against the Panthers. But this game, he stood out as a plus yardage guy. There were some really efficient runs where he looked dead at the line of scrimmage but managed to fall forward or break a tackle to gain those crucial extra yards. He also scored his first NFL touchdown in this game: a lovely check down where he sent the lineman who was 1-1 with him for a hotdog, juking past him with ease to walk in from 10 yards out. Wherever ETN would run down the middle into the pack and gain two yards, Bhayshul in the same situation would gain four.

Obviously a disappointing result, but it felt different to the 2024 losses. We were strong and on another day where the official keeps his laundry in his pocket, we walk out of Cincy with a win. Onto the Texans.

The Jaguars had an incredible season in 2025, and could have gone all the way into the Superbowl, especially looking at what the AFC offered up in that game. Being a “small market team”, the Jags haven’t been talked up much in the 2026 off-season. Couple the size of the market with the lack of free-agency signings, and an esoteric approach in the draft, and the question really is: what were the Jaguars in 2025? What does 2025 tell us about what we can expect in 2026?

Notably, at the end of the season, Liam Coen met with coordinators, coordinators met with position coaches, position coaches met with players to give the feedback of the season in the form of ”3 better, 3 best”. It seemed appropriate therefore to look at each game of the 2025 season with a “3 better, 3 best” lens. I won’t start with the pre-season games from a year ago, but at the start of the regular season and the visit of the Carolina Panthers to Duval.

Before getting into the game, I should acknowledge some biases I had going into the season and that I still retain. I watched the pre-season game against the Steelers and was as concerned with the secondary as anybody with eyes. It was very soft. Their back-ups marched our starters down the field. I remain suspicious of the soft coverage, but will try to be fair – not soft – in covering them. Also, you’ve probably guessed by the name of this blog, but I do like Trevor Lawrence. I’m not deluded enough to think he’s never had a bad game or an errant throw, but I have rose-tinted spectacles when it comes to watching him. I make no apology for that – he’s our guy, he’s awesome and he’s probably going to have a great 2026… but I’ll be honest in my view of Trevor as we re-watch 2026.

Overall review of the game

Well, that was an interesting watch. Fortunately there was no hour long weather delay on the replay, but it felt a bit like it going into the second half: there was a stretch in the second half where neither team looked particularly interested in doing very much, and where Bryce Young lost his mind on a couple of 4^th down plays (who remembers that ball sailing out of the back of the endzone on 4^th and goal?)

I’ll get into what was good and what needed improving down below, but just a couple of highlights: an end around on 4^th down, on your first drive as an NFL Head Coach? Liam Coen, take a bow.

3 Better

1. The Roster.

It was crazy looking at who played in this game compared with the end of the season. Obviously it was before the trade for Jakobi Meyers, and the swap of Tyson Campbell and Greg Newsome, but names like Austin Johnson, Khalen Saunders, Darnell Savage appearing on defense was pretty surprising. The roster by the end of the season looked so much stouter, and credit to both James Gladstone and the position coaches for the way in which players were acquired and also developed over the course of the season.

2. The Run Game.

If I never have to watch Travis Etienne running into the back of offensive linemen, with rushers piling through them to stop him again… oh wait, I have another 17 games to go. Yes, there was the long run where Etienne moved beautifully across the ground, absolutely sold the safety and went long (with some admirable downfield blocking by Dyami Brown), but there was a lot of running up the middle for not much gain. If memory serves, it was a portent of things to come in the season.

3. The Penalties

This was probably always going to be a feature of an inexperienced team with a new HC and OC in their first stints in those roles, and a complex system. Lots of movement pre-snap, lots of cans, lots of wonderful play designs, but a lot of errors as well. The second half seemed to tighten up, but we ran the ball a lot more, which helped. I was struck at how much we were throwing the ball, but that made sense, given many drives started 1^st and 15 or 1^st and 20.

3 Best

1. The Physicality

This was the biggest take-away from the game, for me. Not only in terms of having the guys like Josh and Travon who are enormous units, but the style of play was physical: the way the safeties crashed down on run plays, the way the ball was attacked for the turnover by Oluokun on Young’s scramble, the way that it was often difficult to decipher who made the tackle because there were 3 guys on the runner at any given time. This looked like a team who were champing at the bit to get out there and out-fight the opponent. Once the Jags went up 23-3 in the second half, that conditioning and physicality looked to wane a little bit, and the Panthers played some good ‘take what the defense gives you’ ball. But then we ended our offensive play (bar the kneels) with that Brenton Strange pancake. Glorious.

2. The O-Line

Off the back of the physicality point, there were moments of beauty in the run game from the O-line. The big run by Etienne had some intelligently schemed blocking, but we then saw Bhayshul Tuten enter the game after that point, and crunch a couple of runs back-to-back for the 1^st down, which really set up the big throw to Dyami before the BTJ end around TD. Ezra Cleveland had a couple of really strong blocks, as did Robert Hainsey.

But the real strength of the O-line in this game was in pass protection. There were a couple of times where Trevor threw with a guy in his face, but he stayed remarkably clean in the pocket. There was even time to let the routes develop before hitting the guys between zones or across the middle of the field. The screen game didn’t really get going, but there were a couple of occasions where the screen was looking good in terms of the blocking but the ball was dropped, notably by BTJ early in the game where it really looked like he could’ve gotten away if he’d caught it, and one to Hunter where it would’ve been fun to see him get upfield (the ball was not perfectly thrown, but very catchable).

3. The Script

Despite the point on penalties forcing the pass game to be more prevalent and ambitious than I believe Coen wanted it to be, there was some really nice sequencing. The second half became about clock-spending, which naturally came through running the ball, but even then we saw some nice run-run-play action work where the defense needed to guard against another run so were susceptible to a well-executed play-action. The Jags felt like a team that could hold the Panthers at arm’s length once they got up, which was a welcome change from the 2024 season we suffered through, especially the giving up of late scores to lose by one score.

One defense, there was definitely some of the soft coverage I mentioned in the preamble, notably by Tyson Campbell. Jourdan Lewis played out of his skin in this game, culminating in the game-sealing, athletically caught INT. But despite that, the coverages and pressures were there for all to see. Josh Hines-Allen had a great deal of pressure going into Young, with one sack and the large part of responsibility for moving the tackle out of the way, allowing Smoot to get in for his sack. At one point on the Panthers’ first possession, Campanile had 8 men on the line of scrimmage, and who all dropped into coverage was not expected.

This game kind of had everything we would see from the Jaguars in 2025, we just didn’t know it yet.

The NFL Draft also runs in a world of Forms, where the ideal form of a draft is the Consensus Board. How good or bad your draft is can be directly measured against where the players you picked were ranked out of all draft eligible players. If you are able to take a player beneath their rank, you have done well. If you take a player above their rank, you are terrible. It’s the reason that every year the Philadelphia Eagles and Howie Roseman are lauded as draft experts – they stick to a best player available model, and one where they seem to be aligned to the consensus board form. But think about it for a moment. How many of the Eagles best players were drafted by them? Not soon-to-be-departed AJ Brown. Not Saquon Barkley. Not newly acquired Jonathan Greenard. Or Zach Baun. I’m really not here to blast the Eagles. They’ve done excellently with picks in a lot of recent drafts, and their model clearly works. They’ve also done very well in developing the players they drafted, such as Jordan Mailata.

This is not to say that the consensus board is wrong, or that draft analysists do not know their stuff. But what the consensus board fails to appreciate is fit. There’s some recognition of need, especially in mock drafts, but not really in line with what the team believes their needs are.

This brings me to the Jacksonville Jaguars. We had a weird draft. If a team with greater media coverage had had our draft, the media would be baying for blood. Our first two picks were about 100 picks higher than the consensus board had those players. We drafted two wide receivers, even though our room is strong. We didn’t draft a linebacker, even though we lost Devon Lloyd in free agency. We didn’t pick up a running back, even though we were being mocked to pick one in the second round often. We didn’t take a cornerback, even though we were cornerback-needy. It was confusing.

To try to bring some clarity to the result, here’s what I think happened. Firstly, the Jaguars draft room foresaw the tight end run in the second round. There were six tight ends picked between Nate Boerkircher at 56 and the Jags next pick at 81. Add those to the two that went in the first two rounds, and that makes eight. Dane Brugler’s highly respected ‘The Beast’ in the Athletic had Nate Boerkircher listed as the 8^th ranked tight end in this draft. I think the Jags draft room thought that if they didn’t take him at 56, he wouldn’t be there at 81 to take. It was, therefore, more important to them to end up having Nate Boerkircher on the Jaguars roster in 2027 and beyond than it was to get a consensus-value pick at 56. The reason for that is what Nate Boerkircher can do for the Jaguars in the run game, as well as, to a lesser extent, the pass game. Tight end was clearly an area of focus, given the McVay-induced trend to heavier personnel. Being able to disguise run vs pass gives the offence a significant boost vs the trend for lighter two-safety sets. In sum, the Jaguars were thinking about how the player fits and prioritizing getting him more than what the consensus board said about him. From a team-building perspective, I would rather the former than the latter.

Once you start putting the Jaguars draft through the lens of team and fit, rather than up against a consensus view of the player (independent of team and fit), you can make sense of the players. Albert Regis brings quickness in the rush and is dependable against the run. Jalen Huskey is a ball-hawk safety, with positional flexibility, which is essential for disguising defensive sets.

Having seen one season of Jaguars football, and with retaining the same coaches, you can see the style of play being honed by the Jaguars front office, in collaboration with said coaches. The Jaguars in 2026 are going to be a more balanced offensive team, who want to build on an impressive pass game in 2025 with a more reliable and physical run game. Defensively, the Jaguars in 2025 were too easy to pass against, playing the predominantly zone-based scheme under Coach Camp. By tightening up at corner (with Travis Hunter presumably going to be an ever-present there) and Buster Brown’s style suiting zone coverage, and some more athletic linebackers in coverage, hopefully there won’t be so many easy options for a quick game QB. This will allow the pass-rush to get home better. The pass rush conversion problem was due to Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker not being able to finish. It was a problem of not having sticky enough coverage, which gave the QB an out. You could see that in the first snaps of preseason against the Steelers in August 2025, and the problem hung around a little.

So, the consensus board Form of drafting wasn’t the one the Jaguars were chasing. Rather, they were trying to hone the roster in pursuit of the Form of winning Jaguars football.