Where Does ESPN Rank the Jaguars Skill Group Entering 2024?

What does a room of Christian Kirk, Gabe Davis, Brian Thomas Jr., Evan Engram, and Travis Etienne do for the Jaguars in ESPN's rankings?

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Christian Kirk (13) takes to the field before an NFL football game Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023 at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville, Fla. The San Francisco 49ers defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 34-3. [Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union] / Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA

If you ask 10 different people to rank the Jacksonville Jaguars' offensive weapons, you will likely get 10 different answers.

Nobody will confuse the Jaguars with the San Francisco 49ers' offensive core, but the Jaguars' offense core has taken a big leap since the days of 2020 or Trevor Lawrence's rookie season.

But after swapping out wide receivers Calvin Ridley, Zay Jones and Jamal Agnew for Gabe Davis, Brian Thomas Jr., and Devin Duvernay, where does the Jaguars' skill group stack up with the rest of the NFL's? In a recent ESPN ranking from Brian Barnwell, the Jaguars came in at No. 16. The Jaguars were ranked No. 9 last offseason and No. 28 the offseason before.

"What felt like it might emerge as a top-five unit last season never came together. Travis Etienne got off to a white-hot start and then failed to top 60 rushing yards in eight of his final nine games, ending the season at 3.8 yards per carry. He had 11 rushing touchdowns after seemingly being squeezed out of that workload before the season, but that was because expected goal-line back Tank Bigsby wasn't good enough to earn regular snaps as a rookie.

The receiving corps struggled to jell. Calvin Ridley had a huge Week 1 and then never seemed to find steady targets as the X receiver and wasn't consistently on the same page with Trevor Lawrence. The Jags replaced him and Zay Jones with the combination of Gabe Davis and first-round pick Brian Thomas, who should be the starters on the outside in 2024. I'm more optimistic about the rookie than I am Davis, who couldn't routinely command targets with Josh Allen at the helm in Buffalo.

The key players for the Jags just aren't dominant playmakers. Etienne is a good all-around back, but he isn't the Christian McCaffrey-esque receiver they hoped for coming out of college. Christian Kirk racked up plenty of receiving yards in 2022 before battling injuries in 2023, but he's really a slot receiver who doesn't do much after the catch; he ranks 88th in ESPN's wide receiver metrics over the past two seasons. And Evan Engram's path to the Pro Bowl consists almost entirely of checkdowns; no wide receiver or tight end had more catches that didn't add expected points to his team's total than Engram (36) last season, and his average target traveled just 4.7 yards in the air, which ranked 103rd out of 104 receivers. All of those guys are fine and professional options, but this offense is succeeding when it does because of Lawrence as opposed to the guys around him."

- Bill Barnwell, ESPN

The Jaguars had high expectations internally for their offense a year ago, and the rest of the NFL followed. But even during the Jaguars' 8-3 start, the offense felt disjointed and at times even sloppy. As a result, the Jaguars took a step back in terms of points per game, points per drive, EPA/Play, and success rate.

The Jaguars made a few personnel tweaks this offseason, with the most notable being the addition of Mitch Morse to replace Luke Fortner at center. In the Jaguars' eyes, the hope is Morse can help the run game bounce back and raise the floor of the whole offense.

"You have to be explosive in this league. You know, it's tough enough being consistently efficient. We want to be able to have that explosive element to us," Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor said during OTAs.

"I think that was something, even if you go back and look at our run game, our run game for two years probably hasn't been a efficient as we wanted it to be. I think even year one in the system we were explosive, so we were kind of able to counteract that a little bit. Year two, for whatever reason, that kind of fell off for us. So that's something in the run game definitely that we're looking at to improve upon but also in the pass game. Catch it on the move, making sure we're attacking all aspects of the field and defense."

Outside of Morse, the biggest new names are wide receivers Brian Thomas Jr. and Gabe Davis. The duo will essentially be replacing Calvin Ridley and Zay Jones in the offense, with the potential for a more vertical passing game following them.

"Obviously having Brian's length and speed was a big thing that was a strength of his through his college career. And then something Gabe [Davis] has always brought," Taylor said.

"You're not going to have a super high pass completion percentage if you're pushing the ball way down the field. We feel like we've done a good job of that when we've called the play-action stuff. We have been particularly explosive when you look at our numbers in terms of concepts we've called and opportunities to push the ball. We've done a good job with that. And also Evan [Engram] and Christian [Kirk] from the inside, working inside out and being able to get matched up on safeties at times depending on the principles of the coverage. We feel like we have people that we're able to push the ball down the field. Just got to get the opportunity and call those types of plays throughout the course of games."

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