The Jacksonville Jaguars have a plan. You could see the makings of it when they traded cornerback A.J. Bouye for a fourth-round pick on March 4. The plan grew clearer when the Jaguars decided to ditch Calais Campbell on Sunday in exchange for a fifth-round pick. (Both trades won’t be official until the league year opens on March 18.)
The Jaguars are rebuilding. Bouye’s extended through 2022 and Campbell’s deal extended through 2021, but Jacksonville would rather get draft compensation this offseason. Instead of waiting for Bouye and Campbell to leave in free agency, which would result in compensatory draft picks, the Jaguars traded the stars in an effort to dump salaries and get new talent in free agency.
So this is, roughly, their plan. They’re going to dump past free agent signings while accruing draft compensation. Eventually, they’ll have space to add more talent in free agency. Quarterback Nick Foles, by the way, should be extremely concerned about his standing with the team. He seems like the next casualty in the Jaguars’ sell-off. And perhaps a team will want him at the end of the quarterback carousel. Foles is due just $15 million in salary in 2020, which isn’t bad if a team needs a one-year rental.
The Jags cleared cap space so they can waste more money this year. They're like the gambler who loves to gamble but never makes money. They have become experts in signing high priced free agents paying the bonus then dumping them two years later. They stink at FA but love to play
— Michael Lombardi (@mlombardiNFL) March 15, 2020
The free-agency reinforcements aren’t likely to come in 2020, considering the Jags have just $28 million in cap space. No, they’re more likely to be active in 2021 and 2022. And that’s, in part, why the Jaguars took draft picks now, rather than compensatory picks later. They anticipate spending big money in free agency in the coming offseason, which would nullify their return in the compensatory formula (which weighs free agency losses with acquisitions).
So that’s their vision for the next few years: free up cap space and acquire as much draft capital in the process. The problem is that they’ve tried this plan before. And it doesn’t work. Free agency spending doesn’t always produce results in the regular season. And though the Jaguars got picks for veterans — a typically effective tactic for rebuilding teams — their impatience netted them an unimpressive return. Campbell is an elite player at one of the NFL’s most important positions. Bouye is just the same. Did both their play decline? Certainly. But the Jaguars are a worse team without them. And their fifth-round picks are unlikely to fill those holes in the defense. A fifth-round pick isn’t even a lock to make the 53-man roster.
The Ravens are trading the Jaguars a 2020 fifth-round pick that they acquired from the Vikings for their back-up kicker who was cut three weeks later by Minnesota. They are receiving Calais Campbell.
That is insane.
— Field Yates (@FieldYates) March 15, 2020
Instead, the Jaguars will carry the guaranteed money for Bouye and Campbell on the cap for the next few years. They’ll draft rookies in the crap-shoot rounds of the draft. And they’ll hope that they can somehow build a coherent offense around their rent-controlled quarterback, Gardner Minshew. The Jaguars clearly have a plan. It’s just not one that’s proven to work, especially when it’s executed like this.
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