When discussing linebacker Telvin Smith’s decision not to play football in 2019 last week, Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said that he “kind of put football to the side” and that his chief concern was that Smith was OK.
Football matters will eventually factor into the Jaguars’ response to Smith’s absence. Chief among those matters will be who plays Smith’s weak-side linebacker spot come the regular season. Some might suggest Myles Jack could slide into that spot after playing strong-side and middle linebacker in his first two seasons, but Jack isn’t a buyer of that notion.
“I’ve moved around in this defense and at this point, I feel comfortable playing MIKE and it fits me,” Jack said, via Jacksonville.com. “I definitely can understand the prospective of seeing where I would thrive at WILL, but that means we would have to find somebody else to run the defense to play MIKE that would be hard to bring in a first year guy to try and get everybody lined up.”
The Jaguars drafted Josh Allen in the first round and he’ll likely have a big role come the fall. They also drafted Quincy Williams in the third round to join veteran acquisitions like Najee Goode, Jake Ryan, D.J. Alexander, Ramik Wilson and James Onwualu in a pool of players who could find themselves filling in for Smith.