The Jacksonville Jaguars season finale is on Sunday against the Houston Texans, which means we will quickly move into offseason and NFL Draft mode. Those conversations started early in 2018 however, as it was clear that the season was off the rails, Blake Bortles wasn’t the guy and the team would need some serious reconstructive work on the offensive side of the ball.
One of the conversations that has cropped up for the 2019 offseason naturally has been about the quarterback position. Regardless of what happens on Sunday, Blake Bortles won’t be back in 2019 so you’ve got a huge hole to fill. The ideal scenario is you get your choice of quarterback in the 2019 NFL Draft, but as always that seems to freak people out and they find every possible flaw available and want to lean on the tried and true highly unlikely scenario of finding that rare good quarterback outside of the Top 15 picks.
The other scenario is to sign a veteran quarterback and ride out the defense once again. But in all honesty, is that how people like Doug Marrone (assuming he’s back) and Tom Coughlin keep their jobs? The NFL first and foremost is a league about job preservation before everything outside of flat out winning.
The crop of quarterbacks that will be available in the offseason is a hodge podge of veteran mediocrity. You have guys like Tyrod Taylor, Josh McCown, Ryan Fitzpatrick and Teddy Bridgewater who aren’t going to be expensive, probably aren’t long term answers, but can get you through some muck if you need them to. They’re also all very capable backups to a rookie quarterback and someone you can feel comfortable with if you need them for a game or two.
Then you have the guys like Ryan Tannehill (likely) and Joe Flacco, the latter of which has been a big topic for the Jaguars and I can’t really understand why. As I mentioned, if you’re not winning in the NFL the name of the game is job preservation and is Joe Flacco someone you can risk your job on? He has a losing record the last 4 seasons and has been flat out not good for about five seasons. He pouted about the Baltimore Ravens drafting a rookie quarterback this year, got replaced and the Ravens went on a winning streak.
Not to mention, he’s not going to sign anywhere for 1. cheap 2. as a backup. If you’re signing Joe Flacco, he’s your starter for likely at least two seasons, as far as financial investment. This means you’re not picking an early quarterback in the draft and you’ll probably play yourself out of position to take one in 2020.
Jacksonville is expected to select a quarterback early in the draft and sign a veteran to start until the rookie is ready.
Not only that but, you need to do so much else on the offensive side of the ball you’re going to need a veteran who elevates those around him and you’re quite simply not getting that in the free agent or trade market in 2019. The best course to find a player like that is drafting your own guy.
Identify who that is and pick them. Trade up, if you need to.
Spinning your wheels in 2019 on someone like Joe Flacco, Matt Stafford or Ryan Tannehill doesn’t get anyone anything but a waste of time and money.
Also: Please stop saying don’t draft a second-round guy in the Top 10, or don’t just pick a quarterback because you need one or force the pick. We know. It’s understood. You don’t need to add the caveat every time.
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