Jaguars Take “Bama OL In 2nd Round

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It’s not hard to see where Tom Coughlin wants to take the Jaguars as the VP of Football Operations. His long-time mantra of ‘run the football, stop the run’ is already reflected in the Jaguars signings in free agency and taking Leonard Fournette at the top of the draft. As a rookie, it’s hard to predict what impact Fournette can have behind the Jaguars current offensive line but Coughlin believes taking a back with Fournette’s qualities can show a culture shift for the franchise.

“The idea that you are going to run because of what you have invested, and your offensive line knows it,” he explained. “Your offensive line would much rather run the ball than pass protect all day long. When you make this kind of investment you know that you are going to see (in practice) nine on sevens, you are going to see 11-on-11 play-action pass.”

During his few minutes at the podium after the first round, Coughlin talked about toughness, finishing games and “putting it in the end zone.”

That’s why taking Cam Robinson from Alabama in the second round makes perfect sense. Robinson is the 8th Alabama offensive lineman taken in the last five drafts. That’s currently three more than any other school.

Robinson is 6’6″ 322 lbs. and officially is listed as a tackle. GM Dave Caldwell said Robinson is “A tackle and will compete with Branden Allen at left tackle.” He allowed three sacks in 861 career snaps. Robinson was a freshman all American and a consensus all-American as a junior. He won the Outland Trophy as the nation’s top offensive lineman in 2016

Jaguars Take Fournette: “Physical”

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I’m willing to be gladly surprised, especially if Leonard Fournette is everything the Jaguars think he is.

“He’s special, he’s special,” Jaguars VP of Football operations Tom Coughlin repeated at the podium tonight after making the pick. “We need players who can put it in the end zone. This guy can do that.”

With the 4th pick, the Jaguars took virtually no time to select Fournette, a 6′ 240 lb. running back from LSU. I liked Solomon Thomas but he was gone. They said they didn’t consider trading down (“We knew if they hadn’t called already, they weren’t going to” according to GM Dave Caldwell.)

They had Fournette as the next highest rated player along with safety Jamal Adams, also from LSU but Coughlin said, “We need playmakers.” (They also liked Myles Garrett and Thomas who were taken 1st and 3rd this year)

Over and over, first GM Dave Caldwell then Head Coach Doug Marrone and finally Coughlin used the word “physical.” They like how Fournette can be a physical player at the point of attack but also can get downfield when necessary.

“He’s powerful and can step on the gas when necessary,” according to TC.

“It puts a lot of spotlight on the offensive line,” Marrone said when asked about running behind the current Jaguars O-Line. “One can help the other. We had a lot of information on Leonard. How he ran in track, baseball. We knew a lot about him”

With so many questions about the Jaguars offensive line going into 2017, it’s legitimate to wonder how he’ll produce if the guys up front aren’t what the Jaguars brass are hoping they become. Marrone addressed that, kind of, saying, “We need to be physical. We need to practice like that and more importantly, we need to play that way.”

Physical is one of the first things Caldwell said about Fournette when explaining the selection process. “Us being physical, being able to run the ball, take some pressure off the quarterback.”

But Fournette takes exception to the thought that he’s a “pounder” and not elusive. “I ran track, I can run, (just over 21 seconds in the 200). When it gets on the field (his speed) it surprises a lot of people.”

When asked what would be a successful rookie season, Fournette said, “A Super Bowl,” without a hint of sarcasm. But it was clear listening to and watching him that he was thinking about team goals before any individual goals. “It’s a long process, visiting all those teams. I’m glad to have a new home and a new family.”

And regarding the Jaguars leadership, Fournette said Odell Beckham, Jr. clued him in when he was with the Giants. “I know Coach Coughlin don’t play no games. Odell told me that.”

So Coughlin stuck to his mantra of “Take the best player available” and was able to fulfill a need at the same time. “You got it,” he told me when I presented that scenario. Tom didn’t have to break any deadlocks since Garrett and Thomas were taken in front of the Jaguars and “getting the ball in the end zone” was clearly a priority over safety.

Asked to compare Fournette to Fred Taylor, the ninth overall pick in a Coughlin draft, Tom said, “The one thing they both did is put it in the end zone. That’s what we need.”

Past Is Prologue For The Jaguars Draft

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To figure out what the Jaguars are going to do, the best barometer is what they’ve done in the past. And you can go back to when Tom Coughlin was last making the decisions in Jacksonville.

“You want to take the best player available,” he said last week discussing how the Jaguars will make the decisions in 2017. “At least in the first three rounds. That’s how great organizations have been built. Ideally ‘best player’ and ‘need’ meet when it’s your time.”

After winning three games last year, “need” is a relative term for the Jaguars since it appears they ‘need’ everything. With the fourth selection in the draft, Coughlin said, “We think we’ll get a good football player.” And he’s right, but the draft is always fraught with potholes.

Looking at the first round, the Jaguars don’t think there are actually 32 ‘first-rounders’ despite the availability of 32 picks. In 2017, their number is around players with legitimate first round talent. So they have a shot at an impact player if they stay at four or even if they’re in a position to trade down a bit.

“It’s hard to make a trade in the top five,” Coughlin explained. “It’s not hard to trade down, but it’s difficult for teams to come up that high because it’s so expensive. A lot of teams just can’t afford it.”

A best-case scenario for the Jaguars is if a team below them covets a quarterback (say Mitchell Trubiski) and he’s still there after the first three picks. Ideally the team that would covet Trubiski would still be in the top ten and the Jaguars would have a shot to select what they consider an elite player and gain some draft picks.

Over his career as a personnel evaluator, Coughlin has always liked big players over anything else. Think of Tony Boselli, John Henderson and even the free-agent signing of Leon Searcy. All big, physical players. That’s why I just don’t see the Jaguars taking Leonard Fournette with the fourth pick. Maybe he’s a ‘generational’ player but with an unproven offensive line, even last year’s breakout running back Ezekiel Elliott would have struggled. If they’re looking for a running back, Joe Mixon or even Dalvin Cook will be available where they pick in the second round. (His off-field issue well-documented, the Jaguars wouldn’t confirm Mixon was off their board.)

One scenario not discussed is the Jaguars figuring out how to move up and get DE Myles Garrett. If he’s the class of the draft, that’s something they’ve considered, especially if the Browns are thinking about a quarterback in the top of the first round and can get him in the fourth spot. If Garrett is only slightly higher rated than Jonathan Allen or Solomon Thomas than stay where you are and take one of those players.

The difference between the two is projection. Allen is considered NFL ready but he did have a small injury issue for the Tide. Thomas doesn’t have the true size that everybody likes in defensive ends, but his speed and flexibility make him the kind of player the Jaguars don’t have on their roster. That’s one of the reasons the Jaguars should take Thomas if he’s there. He’s also a smart, high effort player who still hasn’t found his ceiling. He’ll get better as his career develops. With Allen you probably get more immediate help but in a nine-player rotation up front on defense, I like Thomas’ upside.

There’s no guarantee that Thomas will get past San Francisco or Chicago in front of the Jaguars so as Coughlin says, “You have to be prepared for anything. My experience is that things happen in the draft where you say ‘Wow, where’d that come from.'”

That’s why after always saying opening weekend was the most exciting day of the year for Tom as a head coach, when I asked him if draft day will be that as a VP he said, “We’ll see.”

Jaguars Draft 2017: Take The Best Player

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For all the changes the Jaguars have made on the team and the administration for 2017, one thing remains the same: No real information from the pre-draft luncheon.

At least this year it was a bit of a cat-and-mouse game between Vice President of Football Operations Tom Coughlin, Head Coach Doug Marrone, General Manager Dave Caldwell and the assembled media. It was clear they had decided before they stepped into the West Club what they were, and weren’t going to say.

To emphasize that point, when Coughlin was asked what he expected from the 4th pick in next week’s draft he had a quick and clipped response.

“We feel like we’re going to get a good football player.”

So it was more of a “feel” thing being in the same room with the three men charged with running the Jaguars football organization. Being there, seeing their body language and hearing their answers showed that Shad Khan’s idea that these three could work together seems to be developing. It’s not wholly there, but it’s developing.

No question Coughlin is in charge. Marrone is splitting his time between coaching, now that the players are in town, and sitting in on draft meetings. Caldwell is still scouting and evaluating, learning as much as he can about the players available but he understands his won’t be the final vote. That belongs to TC.

“It’s been a very good exchange throughout all of the preparations,” Coughlin explained. “Lots of things have been discussed and, by in large, we’ve agreed on the assessment of the players along the way, with the exception of one or two along the way.”

“There’s a lot more dialogue,” Caldwell added. “There’s a lot more good discussion between, with Tom, being able to bounce things off of him. Doug’s involvement, Doug’s been pretty involved up until this week since the players came back. I think the process has been the same and the involvement and the discussion has been different. It’s been good dialogue, too.”

Give Caldwell credit for giving this a go. He could have up and quit but this opportunity at this point in his career looks to be a good fit. He noted that Coughlin joined a 16-month process 12-months into it, so Caldwell hasn’t had to change much.

They seem to agree that the spot they’re in gives them a lot of flexibility, so they’re trying to anticipate what might happen on draft day and what they value in each round.

“All of the different scenarios that go along with the draft,” Coughlin said about preparing for next week. “You just have to be ready for that.”

As far as trading down out of the 4th spot. They didn’t dismiss the idea.

“That depends on the year,” Caldwell explained. “We had an opportunity last year to move down and we obviously decided to take Jalen (Ramsey). It depends on who’s there and what the talent is in the top four or five picks. There may be some teams that have specific needs and are willing to come up.”

But to get up to the 4th spot is an expensive proposition that a lot of teams can’t afford. That’s why you don’t see that kind of trade on draft day happen often. Coughlin says it’s tough for teams to part with enough to move into the top five.

At the 4th spot, they Jaguars have a pretty good idea about what might happen in front of them. If they trade down, a lot of different things could happen.

“It seems like there are a lot of opportunities,” Coughlin said, drawing on his experience. “Depending on where you draft – say you are in the middle, there is more of a tendency for something to happen in front of you that you didn’t expect there, but there seems to be, from my experience, in every draft, there is something that happens that (makes you say), ‘Wow, where did that one come from?’ You have to be prepared for that.”

Early in his tenure as Head Coach and General Manager of the Jaguars, Coughlin selected quarterback Rob Johnson out of Southern Cal even though the Jaguars didn’t need a quarterback. He was simply the best player on the board and he couldn’t pass him up. That seems to still be Tom’s mantra: Take the best player available.

“I think that’s what you want,” he said. “You have to be disciplined to do that anyway. You want to take the best available player, particularly in the first three rounds. And that’s the way over the years, with consistency, rosters have been improved.”

Which is where the Jaguars find themselves right now.

Nothing Good In The Jags 2017 Schedule

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Of the things that come to mind when looking at the Jaguars 2017 schedule the best are the fact that seven of the 13 opponents had losing record in 2016 and there are only three playoff teams to face.

Everything else is summed up well by my colleague Cole Pepper:

“If the Jaguars are decent at Thanksgiving, the schedule helps them out. Otherwise, not so much.”

It’s a tough start and a tough finish. No primetime game for the first time in franchise history and two games in Jacksonville before November 5th.

Shad Khan can’t be happy.

Three straight home games in December will only help the Jaguars if they’re off to a fast start and are somewhere around .500 through the first three months of the season. That could be tough when they open against the pre-season AFC South favorite Houston Texans on the road, followed by a home game against an emerging Tennessee team and their quarterback Marcus Mariota.

Although it’s a home game, week three is a trip to London to face the Ravens with no bye week afterwards. In fact, the Jaguars will get back on a plane the following Saturday and fly to New York to face the Jets in week four. If that stretch isn’t already tough on the players’ bodies, the go back on the road the next week to face the always-physical Pittsburgh Steelers.

Nothing in the first five weeks favors the Jaguars except that they’ve won in London in back-to-back years. Anything less than 2-3 in that stretch will leave the players hurting, their confidence waning, the coaches mad, and the fans frustrated.

Three of the next five games are at home, with the bye week scheduled for Florida/Georgia weekend on October 29th. The Rams, Bengals and Chargers will be in Jacksonville with the one road trip in that stretch a division game against Indy. This is the stretch where we’ll find out what the Jaguars of 2017 will be all about. None of those teams are world-beaters with the Bengals the toughest out of the bunch.

Beating the Browns in Cleveland will be imperative at that point in the season because the next week they’re back on the road against the Cardinals in Phoenix with Carson Palmer.

Playing three straight home games in December is nice if you’re a contender, but it does nothing for the Jaguars allowing Indy, Seattle and Houston to come here and play a fair-weather game on the road. You want those games at home in September where you can use the home town heat to your advantage.

They finish with two road games, at San Francisco and at Tennessee on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve respectively. The ‘Niners are rebuilding but the Titans could be fighting for a playoff spot and get that game at home.

It’s the first time in franchise history there’s no prime time games, no Thursday appearance, nothing on Sunday or Monday nights. You could say they’ve earned that with their record of the last five years.

If Tom Coughlin and Doug Marrone wanted a challenge, they certainly got one immediately. The league did them no favors.