Tag: dawuane smoot

4 free agents who could still help the Chiefs in 2023

Our @goldmctNFL takes a look at four free agents who he believes can still help the #Chiefs in 2023.

The Kansas City Chiefs have already assembled their 90-man offseason roster, but they could still make some changes down the line.

While everyone is waiting to see where DeAndre Hopkins lands in free agency, it’s also a reminder that there are some other good veteran players who remain available with training camp rapidly approaching. Kansas City doesn’t have any glaring needs, but as the roster competes at OTAs and mandatory minicamps, the coaches and front office members could have a better idea of what weaknesses they’ll need to address ahead of the season.

Here’s a quick look at four free agents that could still help the Chiefs out in 2023:

Dawuane Smoot ‘ahead of schedule’ in injury recovery, says trainer

Dawuane Smoot, who is currently a free agent, is recovering quickly from his torn Achilles.

Dawuane Smoot is currently a free agent, but the Jacksonville Jaguars have expressed interest in bringing the pass rusher back for seventh season with the team. The problem is that the season-ending Achilles tear he suffered in December makes a contract difficult to broker.

A recent post from Rise & Grind Training in Orange Park, Fla. offered evidence that Smoot is well on his way to being ready to sack quarterbacks again.

Smoot, 28, has spent his entire career with the Jaguars since he was picked in the third round of the 2017 NFL draft. After not recording a sack in his first two years in Jacksonville, Smoot has recorded at least five sacks in each of the last four seasons.

At the time of his injury in the 2022 season, Smoot was tied with Josh Allen for the team lead in sacks.

Smoot signed a two-year contract extension with the Jaguars in 2021 just before he was set to become a free agent. He’s currently on the market for the first time in his career.

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Trent Baalke: ‘We’re working hard’ to keep Dawuane Smoot

The Jaguars want to keep Dawuane Smoot, but his Achilles tear makes negotiations a little tricky.

The Jacksonville Jaguars already lost pass rusher Arden Key in free agency and general manager Trent Baalke says he doesn’t want Dawuane Smoot to do the same.

Smoot, 28, has spent his entire career with the Jaguars after he was picked in the third round of the 2017 NFL Draft. Earlier this month, he became a free agent for the first time in his career.

Complicating his pursuit of a new contract is an Achilles tear he suffered late in the 2022 season. On Monday, Baalke told Demetrius Harvey of the Florida Times-Union that the injury has thrown a wrench in the negotiations, but said he’s optimistic that a deal can get done.

“Dawuane’s been an important part of this franchise since he got drafted here in the third round six years ago. We’re working hard with his agent,” Baalke explained, noting that talks will pick up after the team gets back from the meetings later this week. That’s when the team will see what they can get done.

Baalke told Harvey that Achilles tear “does create some issues” as Smoot is pursuing a long-term contract and not just a one-year deal.

The Jaguars have hesitated to spend much this offseason, as the team doesn’t have much salary cap space following a 2022 spending spree. While the team previously said it hoped to keep Key as well as offensive tackle Jawaan Taylor, both players signed elsewhere. The Jaguars also made an effort to sign free agent Calais Campbell, who instead picked the Atlanta Falcons.

Still, the Jaguars did manage to retain several of their own free agents, re-signing C.J. Beathard, JaMycal Hasty, Tre Herndon, Andrew Wingard, Tevaughn Campbell, and Adam Gotsis.

In six seasons with the Jaguars, Smoot has 22.5 sacks and four forced fumbles. He has finished each of the last four seasons with at least five sacks. At the time of his injury in the 2022 season, Smoot was tied for the team lead in sacks.

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Doug Pederson: An improved pass rush is ‘vital’ for Jaguars

Doug Pederson says an improved pass rush is a top priority for the team.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are looking to make defensive improvements before the 2023 season begins and step one is finding a way to apply more pressure to opposing quarterbacks, according to head coach Doug Pederson.

“I think we’ve got to improve our pass rush. I think that’s vital, particularly on third down,” Pederson said Monday at a league meeting in Phoenix. “I thought we were good [against] the run, we just gotta continue to get better [against] the run and shore up some things there.

“I think the passing game is the area we have to look at and address in the offseason, and clean that part of it up. It all starts up front, putting pressure on the quarterback, whether we’re doing that with four guys or five guys. You want to see Travon [Walker] take that next step in year two. You want to see Josh [Allen] come along again as an edge rusher and really, in his fifth year, make an impact for the team. We’re confident both those guys can do that.”

While Pederson finished his thought by saying “the pieces are there” for the Jaguars to be better at rushing the passer in 2023, it also seems likely that the team will hunt for fresh talent as well. The team lost Arden Key in free agency to the Tennessee Titans and Dawuane Smoot is currently on the market as well.

An improved version of Walker would go a long way toward giving the Jaguars a boost, but there are also plenty of draft prospects and experienced free agents who could fill out the rotation.

Jacksonville finished the 2022 season with a league-leading 77 quarterback knockdowns, but was 26th in sacks with 35. Opponents converted 43.2 percent of third downs against the Jaguars defense, the fourth highest rate in the NFL.

Those pass rushing issues haunted the Jaguars in the playoffs where they failed to record a single sack against the Kansas City Chiefs in a Divisional Round loss.

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Jaguars’ 13-year streak without compensatory picks likely ends in 2024

The Jaguars weren’t awarded a compensatory pick for a 13th straight year, but that streak probably won’t reach 14.

The NFL awarded compensatory draft picks Wednesday and, like every year, the Jacksonville Jaguars didn’t get any.

While the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams led the way with four new picks each in the 2023 NFL Draft, the Jaguars haven’t been awarded an extra selection since they received a sixth-round pick in 2010.

The reason is pretty simple: Jacksonville’s recent draft history has been atrocious.

Compensatory picks are awarded to teams that suffer net losses in free agency, and the reality is that the Jaguars haven’t had many departing players good enough to cash in as free agents elsewhere. When there’s been exceptions to that norm, Jacksonville has negated the losses by spending big in free agency to fill a roster hampered by — you guessed it — bad drafting.

This offseason looks like it’ll be much different.

Rather than hunting for players on the open market, the Jaguars have focused their efforts on retaining their own. In recent weeks the team has re-signed C.J. Beathard and JaMycal Hasty, and it used the franchise tag to keep Evan Engram.

While there’s a chance the Jaguars retain more of their players before free agency begins next week, they’ve also run into a problem reserved for good teams. There’s too many good players to keep and not enough money to go around.

Starting right tackle Jawaan Taylor appears headed for the open market, and he’s currently set to be joined in free agency by Arden Key, Dawuane Smoot, and Tre Herndon, among others.

It’s possible the Jaguars sign a player or two on the market, but they won’t be going after the big fish. And they certainly can’t afford to give someone the kind of money that Taylor appears set to receive.

Jacksonville’s remarkable compensatory-less streak will likely end with at least one pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, and that’s a sign that things are changing in Duval.

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Ranking every Jaguars player set to become a free agent in 2023

The Jaguars have several players currently slated to become free agents in March. Who is the top priority to bring back?

The Jacksonville Jaguars’ arrow is pointing up after the team won five straight games to end the 2022 regular season and win the AFC South.

But the team faces some obstacles to a repeat as the division champ. Namely, the team has to work around a salary cap hole that’s currently about $22 million deep.

Digging out of that deficit won’t be too hard, but the Jaguars also won’t have much cash to keep their impending free agents. There are 18 players for Jacksonville that are due to hit the market in March. Here are all of those players, ranked from the most to least valuable for the Jaguars:

14 free agents the Colts should watch during wild-card playoffs

Here are 14 pending free agents the Colts should watch during wild-card weekend.

The Indianapolis Colts will be watching the playoffs unfold from their couch this offseason, and it begins Saturday with the start of the wild-card games.

While the Colts won’t be leading the NFL in salary-cap space like we’ve been used to seeing, they should be a bit more active than they have been in the past.

We shouldn’t expect general manager Chris Ballard to completely change his ways regarding free agency, but it’s reasonable to believe he may be a bit more aggressive when it comes to adding depth, especially to the offensive line.

We’re taking the list of unrestricted free agents, according to Spotrac, for the teams playing in the wild-card games. So there won’t be any Kansas City Chiefs or Philadelphia Eagles players on this list. We’ll save that for next week.

As wild-card weekend gets underway, here are 14 pending free agents the Colts should keep an eye on:

Mike Caldwell: It’s time for K’Lavon Chaisson to become the player he can be

Jaguars coaches are hoping K’Lavon Chaisson will step up in a big way in Dawuane Smoot’s absence.

The Jacksonville Jaguars had high hopes for K’Lavon Chaisson when he was picked 20th overall in the 2020 NFL Draft. The First Team All-SEC pass rusher had 13.5 tackles for loss in his sophomore season at LSU, helping the team to a national championship win before leaving for the NFL at age 20.

But near the end of his third professional season, Chaisson has just two sacks and has been relegated to backup duties in Jacksonville.

Now Chaisson has a chance — perhaps his last one — at proving he can be a productive part of the Jaguars defense. With Dawuane Smoot out for the year with an Achilles tear and Travon Walker nursing an ankle sprain, Chaisson is expected to see more opportunities in the final weeks of the 2022 season.

“You see the speed, you see the size, you see the ability — he can drop into coverage, he can rush the passer,” Jaguars defensive coordinator Mike Caldwell said of Chaisson on Thursday. “There’s ability there. You can see why he was drafted there [in the first round]. It’s time for him to become the player that he was in college; he can become that player now.

“He’s a very intelligent player. He knows the system and he’s working on his craft daily. He had the setback with the injury, but now he’s back healthy, continuing to work. He’s just a guy that, given this opportunity, he has to take advantage of it. Hopefully, we’re looking forward to him doing it.”

Chaisson, 23, was on the field for only 31 defensive snaps in the first five weeks of the season before a meniscus injury landed him on injured reserve. He returned in Week 14 and has played 36 defensive snaps in the last three games.

In addition to Caldwell speaking highly of Chaisson on Thursday, Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson had good things to say about the pass rusher on Wednesday.

“He’s worked extremely hard,” Pederson said. “He knows and he understands that even with a healthy Smoot his role was kind of a four-core special teams player, and he came back ready to attack that and be the best teams player he could knowing he was going to have limited reps on defense.

“Now his focus can sort of shift a little bit toward the defense and really make an impact in Smoot’s absence. This will be big, this week and next week and if we continue on, but he’s put himself in a position to do that.”

The Jaguars rank 28th in the NFL in sacks with only 29 through 15 games.

Travon Walker is ‘close’ to return, says Doug Pederson

The Jaguars expect to get the 2022 No. 1 overall pick back in the lineup soon.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have been without rookie outside linebacker Travon Walker for the last two weeks, but his return isn’t far away.

“He’s close,” Jaguars coach Doug Pederson told reporters on Wednesday. “Today will be a big day, as will each day this week as we get closer to game time.”

Walker, 22, was listed as questionable for a Week 15 game against the Dallas Cowboys before he was listed as inactive. Last week, the Jaguars ruled out Walker a day ahead of their Thursday night game against the New York Jets.

On Wednesday, Walker was listed as limited in practice.

The No. 1 pick in the 2022 NFL Draft has 3.5 sacks, one interception, one forced fumble, and eight quarterback hits in 13 games this season. While he hasn’t been a consistent pass rusher so far as a rookie, the Jaguars are now thinner than ever at the defensive end and outside linebacker positions after losing Dawuane Smoot to a torn Achilles tendon.

“K’Lavon [Chaisson] will get more time, obviously Josh [Allen], Arden [Key], get Travon back, optimistic of that,” Pederson said when asked about the void left by the Smoot injury. “We’ve got those four guys that can and are going to have to fill that role.”

The Jaguars defense in 15th in the NFL in points allowed and 26th in total yards allowed.

Jaguars place Cam Robinson, Dawuane Smoot on injured reserve

The Jaguars shut down OT Cam Robinson and DL Dawuane Smoot for the rest of the season.

The Jacksonville Jaguars moved offensive lineman Cam Robinson and defensive lineman Dawuane Smoot to the injured reserve Monday, officially ending both players’ season.

That’s unsurprising for Smoot, who announced Saturday that an MRI revealed a torn Achilles tendon. The veteran defensive lineman is tied for the Jaguars team lead in sacks with five and has 22.5 sacks in the last four years. Smoot is set to become a free agent in the offseason.

Robinson’s move to injured reserve is the more surprising of the two moves after the Jaguars kept him on the active roster last week. Robinson suffered a meniscus in Week 15 against the Dallas Cowboys and Jaguars coach Doug Pederson told reporters that the offensive tackle was “gonna miss time.”

The decision to keep Robinson on the active roster through Week 16 suggested the Jaguars were holding on to slim hopes that he’d return in the postseason. That door is now closed.

Robinson, 27, was twice franchise tagged by the Jaguars before signing a three-year, $54 million contract extension in April.

The Jaguars are now relying on second-year player Walker Little to handle left tackle duties.