JaguarsTalk: Jacksonville Jaguars 2022 NFL Draft First Round

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It’s been a minute since the NFL draft. I’ve let all of the “experts” weigh in on the picks. I’ve let all of the Monday morning armchair analysts argue over Twitter and the socials about how their team should have taken a different player; how another team blew their pick. But this site is about the Jags. If we are being completely honest 10% is about random musings and 90% of these columns are about Jacksonville; or how this year will definitely be the year for the Jets. Let’s take a quick break right here to get a few things out of the way up front.

1) Nobody ever says this will be the year for the Jets. If the Jets were to ever get over the butt fumble and actually produce a few playoff seasons then they would become too expensive for Gary V. to purchase. Nobody wants that. Frankly, I’m rooting for Gary to buy them one day. Who doesn’t love them some Vaynerchuk?

2) It’s all a guessing game. The draft that is. Yes, it is an educated guess. A hypothesis, if you will, to use my favorite seventh grade science fair word, but a guess, none-the-less.

3) Those who get paid millions of dollars a year to do nothing but live and breathe football probably know a little bit more than the rest of us about, well… football, the football draft and the available football players. Though I will say that there have been plenty of times where those in the know have certainly caused us lay people to question the level of “know” that they were supposedly in. For the most part though, Pederson and Baalke certainly have to know more than we know. Right?

Now back to the NFL draft that just was. Everybody, and when I say everybody, I figuratively mean that literally every single person other than the Jaguars’ brass, thought Travon Walker was chosen, in the immortal words of Harry Doyle, “just a bit outside.” I wanted to write “just a bit early,” but Bob Uecker followed the script and so now I must adapt. The main argument being that with the number one pick in the draft the smart move would be to send good ol’ Goodell up to the mic with a proven commodity. A player who has already done the exact thing they will be expected to do moving forward. This most definitely describes Aidan Hutchinson. He is the defensive end, edge rush specialist, quarterback killing beast from the university of maize and blue. Fortunately for Hutch, or maybe not so fortunately, he will be playing pro ball right down the road from the University of Michigan, at Ford Field. I say maybe not so fortunately because when selected #2 by the Lions he said he was happy to be staying home and playing for Detroit. It was then that I knew Aidan Hutchinson was a much better actor than Amber Heard ever will be. Tangentially, anybody else watching this Johnny Depp trial? This thing’s got me hooked. Amber Heard, on the stand, versus Aidan Hutchinson being happy to go to Detroit. Who is more convincing? I wish I could have seen Matthew Stafford's expression when he heard Hutchinson emote about his new team.

So being that this is JaguarsTalk we are going to attempt to focus on Jacksonville. I say attempt because as you will discover upon becoming a regular reader, I frequently veer from our lane and oftentimes wax philosophical about topics that have nothing to do with the Jaguars yet somehow I manage to tie these eccentricities back to the overall theme of the column. Today, as previously stated, we will be laser focused on the Jaguars’ draft. I, however, am going to take a slightly different tack and look at things from a “needs” point of view. Did they fill their needs?

Bottom line, yeah they certainly did. It’s been said by others that they redefined their defense. To me, between the draft and acquisitions, I think Jacksonville now actually has one. Filling their defensive needs means the Jags will be causing opposing OCs to call more three step drops instead of five and seven steppers. Let’s face it, no QBs want to dance with any of the top edge rushers in this past draft. It doesn’t matter if it’s Kayvon Thibodeaux, Aidan Hutchinson, or Travon Walker. We can argue about which guy should have been selected with the first pick but we can’t argue the fact that any of the three would have filled their edge rusher needs. Personally, I would have chosen Hutchinson or possibly even Thibodeaux before Walker. Coaches and GMs, however, get paid the big bucks to decipher the nuances that cause them to make one choice over another, while I get paid, well, I get paid in lovely comments, suggestions, and often insightful insults that you fine people leave for me. 

While nobody ever gets fired for choosing the popular pick, no-one excels without taking chances. Now, while I give Pederson and Baalke credit for knowing what they’re doing, I also want to leave these names right here, if I may: Ryan Leaf, Heath Schuler, Johnny Manziel, Matt Leinart, Vince Young (I just noticed these are all QBs, but you get the point). Maybe those in the know don’t always know the exact right player to choose, but they do know the exact right position to fill. That in mind, It’s quite possible that Walker’s ceiling is higher than Hutchinson’s and that Hutchinson has reached his potential earlier in life. He could be the Young Sheldon of edge rushers while Travon may need a year or two to come into his own. Does anybody really know if Walker’s potential is greater than Hutchinson’s? I know two people who get paid specifically to know that answer. I will give Pederson and Baalke the benefit of the doubt and say that nobody has ever achieved greatness without taking risk. In the same breath I will also say that the number one pick might not be the place for said risk. I will also say, what many have before, that this draft didn’t have a clear number one. There was no stand out. There was no Trevor Lawrence this year, so it wasn’t such an easy and clear cut decision. But I am already super excited to write an update column about this pick in a year or so.

While we are handing out benefits of doubts, I will greatly hand it to Pederson and Baalke for trading back into the first round to select Utah linebacker Devin Lloyd. Talk about a proven player. The Lloyd pick was everything for the Jags that the Walker pick was not. If Walker isn’t fully polished yet and Hutchinson is, then Lloyd is the Hutchinson of linebackers in this draft. I truly believe Lloyd was a steal at the end of the first. He is a top ten talent.

In an attempt to wrap up the Jaguars’ first round picks my final opinion will agree with many of you, I am sure. I would have picked Hutchinson over Walker but I sure as hell didn’t see the Lloyd pick coming. I was, in fact, at the Duuuval draft party at Daily’s Place watching the draft with thousands of great fans and, stupid me, I left before the end of round one. It was quite a pleasantly surprising move that deserves some pretty extreme credit. Kudos to you if you saw it coming. It was a very slick move that garnered a very high reward. It impressed me to the point where it gave me hope that both Pederson and Baalke also knew what they were doing with the Walker pick. After all, we can’t give them credit for Lloyd and at the same time assume that they were idiots with Walker, can we?

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