What Did Sports Illustrated Learn About the Jaguars This Offseason?

Things were quiet in Jacksonville this offseason which, for once, was a good thing.

Each offseason tells a different story. 

For some teams, the offseason is about rebuilding, filled with big moves in hopes of either inching closer to winning or inching closer to tanking by tearing the team apart at the seams.  

For other teams, the offseason is about retooling; stepping away from the season to improve internally before running it back with the same cast and crew from a year earlier.

It is obvious which of these paths the Jaguars chose this offseason, with Jacksonville re-signing most of their free agents with the exception of Jawaan Taylor and Arden Key. And that leads us to what Sports Illustrated learned about the Jaguars this offseason.

"A quiet offseason is good for Jacksonville," SI said.

"The Jaguars seem to be the forgotten team in the AFC, because they didn’t make a splash this offseason. But they already spent big last year and traded for wide receiver Calvin Ridley during the 2022 season, you know, when the Jaguars beat the Chargers in the wild-card round before pushing the Chiefs the following round. The Jaguars aren’t a perfect team, but they should again be in the mix this season."

Considering the Jaguars were among the NFL's biggest spenders in the 2021 and 2022 offseasons, it isn't surprising to see that the Jaguars spent this March bringing back depth pieces like C.J. Beathard, JaMycal Hasty, Tre Herndon, Andrew Wingard, and offering extensions to Roy Robertson-Harris and DaVon Hamilton. 

The Jaguars wanted to shift into draft-and-develop mode this offseason and they did just that, drafting a franchise-record 13 players in April. As Jaguars owner Shad Khan said this offseason, the feeling in Jacksonville is that, for the first time, the Jaguars have the ingredients for sustained success. 

"Again, I think what gives me the confidence of sustainability is, you know, head coach, general manager and the quarterback. I think, you know, they're here for the long haul," Khan said.

"You know, we've lost a couple of players this year, salary cap, hated to see them leave, but that's really a measure of success that you can't hang on to all your players, you know. And so then obviously, the skill, the trick is to replace them, hopefully, you know, with better players. So, you know, we've got the draft, primarily to develop players for the future and a system that is sustainable."