The Jacksonville Jaguars’ decision to trade for wide receiver Calvin Ridley ahead of the trade deadline sets up an exciting offensive addition for 2023, but won’t do anything to jumpstart the offense in 2022 while he’s out due to a suspension.
If that makes the timing of the move a little bit of a head-scratcher, Jaguars coach Doug Pederson explained Wednesday that it was far from a rushed decision.
“I think you look at free agency back even in the spring, when free agency hits, you’re looking at everything,” Pederson told reporters. “In that position, obviously [Ridley’s] name was in the hat, in the bucket, back in the spring when we were looking at free agency, yeah.”
“The thought process of trading for him now, well, you’re betting on the future, right? You’re putting resources out there to get a top receiver, caliber-type player in this league, and obviously, it goes back to whenever he gets reinstated. The second we can get him in here, it’ll be no different than when we got Zay [Jones] and Christian [Kirk] and all those guys this year. Just getting him the playbook, getting him caught up, and when the offseason program starts, we can go from there.”
Ridley, 27, was suspended by the NFL on March 7 for betting on games in November 2021 while he was on the non-football injury list. He’s eligible to apply for reinstatement in February 2023.
The Jaguars sent a pair of conditional picks to the Falcons for Ridley with one likely to be a fifth-rounder in the 2023 NFL Draft and the other ranging from a second- to fourth-round selection in 2024.