The Jaguars hold the 29th overall pick in this year’s draft and it might take them a moment or too to get used to those surroundings.
It’s the first time that the team has been drafting outside of the Top 10 since the 2007 season, which represents the major change in circumstances that took place in 2017. The Jaguars went 10-6, won the AFC South and advanced to the conference title game to break a long run as one of the league’s worst teams.
General Manager Dave Caldwell said at a Friday press conference that the team’s “process stays the same” despite their new neighborhood, but he did identify one big difference from past years when rookies were expected to step right into the lineup.
"[The media has] been around us where we didn’t have guys to line up with at this point of the year,” Caldwell said, via the Florida Times-Union. “Our first year here, we had to draft rookies and start them. Now we can take the best player available. We have needs, don’t get me wrong, but we don’t have a glaring need.”
The lack of a glaring need creates several paths that the Jaguars could take next week in terms of both positions to target and trades to entertain while they’re on the board. Making the right decisions about which ones to take should help the Jaguars improve their chances of staying at the bottom end of the first round a while longer.