They were true to their word; the Jaguars picked the player they had rated next on their board. Reggie Williams a wide receiver from the University of Washington was the next guy the Jaguars had rated in the draft, so they took him with the ninth pick overall. “He’s a big, fast, physical wide receiver from the day he arrived at Washington,” is how Head Coach, Jack Del Rio described him in his explanation of the pick.

Del Rio said the Jaguars tried to move up and down, but wanted to get Williams and didn’t want to risk moving down and missing him. “We’ve talked to everybody on the board,” Del Rio explained when asked if the Jaguars had made serious discussions with other teams to move up the draft board. “Everybody’s going to have their own take on the board. Everybody’s entitled to their opinion but we think this is the right fit for us.”

James Harris, the Jaguars personell director admitted the shoulder question associated with Kenechi Udazi did play a part in the Jaguars decision making, but agreed that Williams was the best fit. “Of all the players in this grouping where we had to pick, we thought Williams was the best player for us, so we picked him. He’s a playmaker, he was the next player on the board for us, and we didn’t want to have a pick that wasn’t enticing to us just to move back. We didn’t want to miss out on Reggie Williams.”

The Jaguars did speak to several teams about moving, even, according to Jack Del Rio, the Chargers. But it seems the most serious discussions were with Detroit and possibly the Giants about moving up. The Jagaurs would have liked to had Roy Williams, who was taken by the Lions three spots in front of them, so they were talking with Detroit about moving up but apparently the price was too high, and there was too much of a risk that Cleveland or Atlanta might have been willing to move out of those spots to allow somebody to get the player the Jaguars wanted. “We had our guy,” Harris added, “we were prepared to take Reggie Williams and when he was available, we took him. We like him.”

It’s considered a little bit of a stretch by the draft “experts” considering most of them had Williams rated in the second ten of the first round. But the Jaguars had him rated near Larry Fitzgerald and Roy Williams, the first two receivers taken in the 2004 draft. “We had him rated right there with those two,” Del Rio explained.

Williams worked out here in Jacksonville, running a 4.49 40 yard dash, and apparently the team liked what they saw. “I’m proud to be a Jaguar,” Williams said by phone from Washington. “I knew they might take me, and they called me with about 8 minutes left on the clock to say they were going to make me the pick.”

Picking Williams says volumes about what the Jaguars think about Kevin Johnson and Troy Edwards, two starters from last year. Edwards seems like a slot guy, and Johnson a possesion receiver in the Jaguars current offensive formation so Williams expects to come in and be a starter right away. His agent has a reputation for holding players out of training camp but Williams said that won’t be the case. “I’m in charge of the situation here, I won’t be a hold out,” Williams declared.