Jacksonville was the worst team in football in 2020, finishing with a 1-15 record that landed it the first overall pick in the draft for the first time in franchise history. After an active offseason and draft that saw the Jaguars add a number of players at positions of need, they’re expected to improve from that last-place spot.
But according to the post-draft power rankings from Touchdown Wire, not by that much. Doug Farrar doesn’t have the Jags in the bottom spot (that placement is reserved for their division rival, the Houston Texans). But despite landing a franchise quarterback in the draft in Trevor Lawrence, Farrar doesn’t expect much more than a marginal improvement in 2021, putting Jacksonville at No. 31 in the power rankings.
The 2017 Jaguars went 10-6 and came one half of football in the AFC Championship Game against the Patriots from a trip to Super Bowl LII. Since then, the team has put up a 12-36 record (including a 1-15 mark in 2020), the worst over that time. So the crest toward a rebuild in 2021 was decisive. Hiring Urban Meyer for his first NFL coaching job was step one. An active free agency period in which they upgraded their secondary with Shaquill Griffin and Rayshawn Jenkins and their receiver group with Marvin Jones was step two. Step three was a draft class featuring the most obvious pick in quarterback Trevor Lawrence, taken No. 1 overall. The Clemson alum may be the most high-floor/high-ceiling prospect at the position since Andrew Luck, so good job there. Then, with their second first-round pick, Meyer went back to Clemson with running back Travis Etienne. You can question the need there, but Etienne projects well as an Alvin Kamara type who can nuke defenses moving from the backfield to the slot.
The Jaguars did a lot to advance their interests this offseason, but there’s so much to fix, and we have absolutely no clue how Meyer will handle the day-to-day rigors of the NFL.
The Lawrence and Etienne additions could make a Jags offense that was far from bad in 2020 fairly formidable. But Jacksonville’s defense was among the league’s worst last season, and Farrar doesn’t think the offseason additions will be enough to change that drastically in one year.
It’s certainly setting up to be a rebuilding year for the Jaguars, a position fans of the team are all too familiar with. But this time around, the franchise has the best prospect it has ever acquired in Lawrence, and better days appear to be on the horizon. Whether those days are in 2021 remains to be seen.