About a week ago, ESPN’s Field Yates proposed a trade involving defensive end Yannick Ngakoue and David Njoku of the Cleveland Browns. In a nutshell, the two teams exchanged both players while the Browns added in a second-round selection, and surprisingly, it got a lot of good feedback from Jags fans.
Now, here we are not too far removed from the article and it appears Yates was on to something. Njoku recently demanded a trade two days ago, leaving fans to speculate what teams are fits for the young tight end.
For the sake of this article, we’ll leave Ngakoue out of the picture and just look at it from a standpoint of the Jags acquiring Njoku by providing draft compensation and not players. However, to answer the question of whether the Jags should trade for him we have to look at the Jags’ current tight end group.
The organization came into the offseason with a need for a tight end after three of their tight ends went on injured reserve last season. Those players were Geoff Swaim (concussion/ ankle), Josh Oliver (back), and James O’Shaughnessy (ACL), leaving the Jags’ offense at a huge disadvantage when it came to pass-catchers. Now, two of those three will be back in O’Shaughnessy and Oliver (while Swaim was cut) in addition to another notable in veteran tight end Tyler Eifert, who is the most familiar with the offensive system.
When looking at those three names there should be concerns on the Jags part. O’Shaugnessy, a favorite target of Gardner Minshew II, will be coming off an ACL tear, which means 2020 may not be a super productive year for him. Fans aren’t exactly high on the health of Eifert either, as he’s missed over 50 regular season games in his career. As for Oliver, he only registered three catches last season and will be learning a new scheme. That ultimately makes him feel like a rookie who is still at Square 1.
Still, the team is seemingly high on what they have and I believe Oliver especially could prevent them from wanting Njoku. They were high enough on him to take him with a third-round selection in 2019, and after how last season went, they are going to want to see what they have in him. In a nutshell, it feels as though Oliver is the team’s version of Njoku — at least they’re hoping.
For me, Njoku is a talented player when healthy and could be a TE1 in time and the Jags should at least be open to it. However, when looking at it from their standpoint with Oliver and them showing confidence in Eifert by not drafting a tight end, it looks like their minds are set at the position.
Additionally, if the Jags looked into a trade for Njoku the asking price would have to be extremely friendly. If a fifth-round selection or less is all they have to give up, that’s worth the risk even though it’s unlikely that they would.
Now, we’d like to know what you all at home think about a Njoku trade. Does it make sense for the Jags? Let us know in the poll below.
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