Trent Baalke

NFL Coaching Rumors: Jacksonville, Smith, Mayo

December 13th, 2024 at 8:31pm CST by Ely Allen

The way the season is going in Jacksonville, it’s looking more and more likely that the Jaguars are going to have some new leadership in 2025. The consensus in league circles is that the team is highly likely to move on from head coach Doug Pederson. The question that seems to be trending lately for Jacksonville is whether or not general manager Trent Baalke will be soon to follow.

According to ESPN’s Dan Graziano, there has been increased speculation on whether or not Baalke will be sticking around to choose Pederson’s replacement, should he be fired as expected. Having already been eliminated from playoff contention with a 3-10 record while, at this point, competing for a top draft slot, it seems like a foregone conclusion that Pederson is out, but with Baalke, it’s not as sure a thing.

In an appearance on Herd with Colin Cowherd, FOX Sports’s Jordan Schultz claimed he doesn’t believe Baalke gets fired because he’s entrenched himself with team owner Shahid Khan and chief football strategy officer Tony Khan.

Here are a few other rumors from coaching circles in the NFL:

Arthur Smith‘s recent success jump-starting the career of veteran quarterback Russell Wilson has put him back in the head coaching spotlight. The Steelers offensive coordinator may have to wait a little longer, though. Per Graziano, Smith is more likely to find his way back into head coaching races after the 2025 season than in the upcoming offseason.
Like the Jags, the Patriots are another team already eliminated from the post season and in the running for a top draft slot. That doesn’t appear to mean the same thing for New England’s head coach, though, per Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated. Jerod Mayo is only in his first year as Patriots head coach and as an NFL head coach in general. Team owner Robert Kraft was part of the decision to set Mayo up for a coach-in-waiting situation, so it’s hard to imagine that he’s lost the vision on that front this early.

Jaguars, LT Walker Little Agree To Extension

December 1st, 2024 at 10:04pm CST by Rory Parks

The Jaguars have agreed to a three-year, $45MM extension with left tackle Walker Little, as ESPN’s Adam Schefter was first to report. The deal, which features $26MM in guaranteed money, will keep Little under club control through 2027.

Little, 25, was selected by Jacksonville in the second round of the 2021 draft and saw just six regular season starts over his first two professional seasons. However, three of those games — along with two more postseason appearances as a starter — came at the end of the Jaguars’ exciting 2022 campaign, when the club rallied to a playoff berth and won a memorable wildcard round bout against the Chargers. Little’s efforts during that stretch earned the praise of quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

This season, speaking shortly after the Jags traded longtime LT Cam Robinson to the Vikings (thereby paving the way for Little), Lawrence said, “[Little] had to come in, in ‘22 when Cam got hurt, and finish the season when we were on that run. We didn’t skip a beat because he was prepared, and he prepared every day like a starter. … [H]e’s more than ready and he’s done a great job. I’m excited for him. I’ve got all the faith in the world, and he’s played great so far” (h/t John Shipley of SI.com).

Little received extensive work in 2023 thanks in large part to Robinson’s PED suspension and subsequent knee injury (though some of Little’s action came at left guard). In 14 games (11 starts), Little was flagged for seven penalties and yielded 26 total pressures, seven of which got home for sacks. That amounted to a middling 58.8 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, which positioned him as the 58th-best tackle out of 81 qualifiers.

Now the unquestioned starter at left tackle in the wake of this year’s Robinson trade, Little has started each of the Jags’ last four games and has allowed just one sack and three QB hits during that time. PFF has assigned him a strong 67.9 overall mark for his 2024 work, and his performance to date has convinced Jacksonville brass that Little is the right player to protect Lawrence’s blind side for the foreseeable future.

Naturally, GM Trent Baalke was “heavily involved” in the Little negotiations, as Schefter confirms. Of course, Baalke is very much on the hot seat, so it is at least notable that he is making major decisions that will impact the long-term future of the Jaguars. A rival executive tells Schefter that the Little extension is a sign that Baalke is planning to remain with the club, though Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle throws some cold water on that notion. As Branch reminds us, Baalke authorized a five-year, $35MM deal for tight end Vance McDonald in December 2016, when Baalke was serving as GM of the 49ers. Baalke was fired less than a month later.

Regardless of what it means for Baalke’s future, Little’s new contract likely takes the 2-9 Jaguars out of the running for an offensive tackle when they make their first pick of the 2025 draft, as ESPN’s Field Yates posits.

Jaguars’ Trent Baalke Wanted Doug Pederson To Fire OC Press Taylor?

November 20th, 2024 at 10:20pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Jaguars stood 8-3 at this point last season but have gone 3-14 in the 17 games since that hot start. As a result, Doug Pederson is almost certain to be fired by season’s end. GM Trent Baalke is also on unstable ground.

Pederson remains employed as Jaguars HC, with owner Shad Khan thus far resisting the former Super Bowl-winning coach join Urban Meyer and Gus Bradley in being dismissed in-season. But it appears only a matter of time before Pederson is gone. Some around the league believe Khan will have no choice but to fire both Pederson and Baalke to start the 2025 offseason, ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler notes.

Sitting 2-9 after a 52-6 demolition at the hands of the soaring Lions, the Jaguars rank last defensively despite that being the area Pederson focused on in terms of staff turnover. Pederson fired two-year DC Mike Caldwell and most of his staff but opted to keep OC Press Taylor despite Baalke having conducted a close look into the state of the offense with Taylor at the controls. Pederson made Taylor the team’s full-time play-caller in 2023, and that plan carried over into this season. The younger brother of Bengals HC Zac Taylor, Press has not distinguished himself during a dismal Jags season.

Baalke and Pederson are not seeing eye-to-eye presently, and SI.com’s Albert Breer notes Press Taylor’s presence is a key reason why. Baalke is believed to have wanted Pederson to make more staff changes, with Taylor’s name coming up as one the fourth-year Jags GM would have liked to see go. As was the case with the Eagles, however, Pederson has been loyal to Taylor. This is not the first time Taylor’s name has come up as a Pederson anchor, nor is this the first report of Pederson-Baalke strife.

The Eagles shot down Pederson’s plan to promote Taylor to OC in 2021; the team fired Pederson soon after. Nevertheless, the former Philadelphia honcho brought Taylor with him to Jacksonville and has stuck by him despite steady criticism. The Jaguars have tumbled from 13th to 28th in total offense since last season and 13th to 23rd in scoring. Trevor Lawrence‘s absence has played a small part in the decline, though the former No. 1 overall pick has been healthier than last season on the whole.

It is rather interesting Taylor’s name has caused so many issues for Pederson dating back to his time in Philly — only to see no action taken. Taylor remains in place as Jags OC, though his tenure in that role will be capped at three seasons. This has marked Taylor’s first OC opportunity, but Pederson promoted him to pass-game coordinator with the Eagles. That drew scrutiny once Carson Wentz regressed; Taylor did not interview for another OC post once the Jags hired him in 2022. Taylor, 36, has been a Pederson staffer throughout the latter’s HC tenure, even though it was Chip Kelly who initially brought him to Philly.

The reported HC-GM friction aside, Fowler adds some believe the coach has not lost the locker room. Baalke has plenty to answer for as well, seeing as he greenlit the three most lucrative extensions in franchise history (for Lawrence, Josh Hines-Allen and Tyson Campbell) only to see the team plummet off the contender tier. This came two years after Baalke’s famous Travon Walker-over-Aidan Hutchinson call. GMs do not receive second chances on the level HCs do, and it appears more likely than not the former 49ers front office boss’ second GM opportunity is nearing an end.

Jaguars GM Trent Baalke At Risk Of In-Season Dismissal

November 18th, 2024 at 3:14pm CST by Rory Parks

NOVEMBER 18: Sunday’s lopsided loss has, as expected, left Pederson’s job status very much in the air. If a change on the sidelines is to take place, Bill Belichick remains a potential candidate to take over by the start of the 2025 season. On that note, The Athletic’s Dianna Russini reports a partnership between Belichick and Baalke would be “highly unlikely.” How Khan proceeds over the immediate and medium-term future will certainly be worth watching closely regardless of whether or not a Belichick pursuit takes place.

NOVEMBER 17: Reports from earlier this week indicated that an in-season shakeup of the Jaguars’ power structure may be in store should Jacksonville suffer a blowout loss at the hands of the Lions in Week 11. In addition to head coach Doug Pederson, Jags general manager Trent Baalke could also lose his job if the Jags are outclassed by Detroit, as Ian Rapoport of NFL.com confirms.

Owner Shad Khan publicly backed both Pederson and Baalke earlier this year, and he reportedly prefers to wait until the end of the season to pull the trigger on a coaching and/or front office overhaul. However, there is a very good chance that the 2-8 Jaguars, who are being quarterbacked by Mac Jones while Trevor Lawrence nurses a shoulder injury, will indeed lose in lopsided fashion to the 8-1 Lions, and Rapoport says the sense inside the Jaguars’ facility is that some sort of change is inevitable.

When addressing his team during training camp this summer, Khan made a statement that is aging more poorly with each passing day, noting that this year’s iteration of the Jaguars is the best in franchise history. Assuming he truly felt that way – and per Rapoport, rival clubs acknowledge Jacksonville sports a talented roster – then it would seem that Baalke, as the chief architect of that roster, would at least have a chance to remain in his position in 2025.

Indeed, when Pederson’s seat began to heat up in September, it was suggested that Baalke was on firmer footing than the head coach. On the other hand, the team’s fall over the last calendar year – the 2023 Jags won eight of their first 11 games and then lost five of their final six to miss the postseason – could be too dramatic for any of its top power brokers to survive.

Baalke, 60, served as the 49ers’ GM from 2011-2016, and during that time, San Francisco boasted 35 Pro Bowl selections and made a Super Bowl appearance. After head coach Jim Harbaugh departed at the end of the 2014 season, however, the Niners’ fortunes went south. The coaches that Baalke hired to replace Harbaugh, Jim Tomsula and Chip Kelly, were one-and-dones, and the team went a combined 7-25 over the 2015-16 seasons. That led to Baalke’s ouster, and he spent the next several years as a football operations consultant for the NFL.

Baalke became the Jaguars’ director of player personnel in February 2020, was named interim GM upon Dave Caldwell’s firing in November of that year, and had his interim tag removed at the conclusion of the 2020 campaign. Even so, Baalke’s status as GM was believed to be turning off certain coaches during what became a long-running HC search in the 2022 coaching cycle, and the team interviewed longtime Vikings GM Rick Spielman for a non-GM position (but one that would have outranked Baalke). Although the Spielman hire never came to pass, rumblings about Baalke’s standing within the organization were still surfacing at the end of the 2022 season, the first year of the Pederson era.

While it has been reported that the relationship between Pederson and Baalke has become strained, Rapoport says that there is no in-fighting between the personnel department and the coaching staff at the moment. Members of both parties acknowledge that the club’s failure is a collective effort, and there is a “pall” and a “doom” hanging over the building as staffers brace for at least one ax to fall in short order.

Jaguars Owner Shad Khan Voices Support For Doug Pederson, Trent Baalke

October 13th, 2024 at 8:44am CST by Rory Parks

The Jaguars captured their first win of the 2024 campaign last week, defeating the division-rival Colts in a 37-34 shootout to improve their record to 1-4. In light of recent reports suggesting that head coach Doug Pederson is on the hot seat and that the relationship between Pederson and GM Trent Baalke is strained, the victory was a well-timed one for Jacksonville’s top power brokers.

While situations like this always have the potential to change on a moment’s notice, owner Shad Khan is still supporting Pederson and Baalke. In an interview with Demetrius Harvey of the Florida Times-Union, Khan noted that the 2022 iteration of his club started the year 2-6 but rallied to make the playoffs and win a thrilling wildcard round contest, while the 2023 version raced out to an 8-3 record, only to miss the postseason entirely.

Reading between the lines, it could be that Khan will not be swayed by the early returns in 2024 and will give Pederson and Baalke the chance to reverse Jacksonville’s fortunes. Plus, as prior reporting on the matter suggested, there is no one currently on the coaching staff who would represent a clear option to take over interim HC duties, a reality that could help Pederson keep his job through at least the remainder of the campaign.

Khan also pointed out that three of the Jags’ four losses this season were eminently winnable, as the club had late leads or the chance to take late leads in all three contests. While the accumulation of narrow losses is never a good look for a coaching staff, Khan appears to be taking the fact that Jacksonville is remaining competitive as a positive sign for the time being.

“So, to me, every game you go to, you want to do everything to win it and this is the NFL, that’s hard,” Khan said. “Every game is competitive. A loss is a loss, but [it’s about] how you lose. To me, the three games we lost early in the season, it’s disappointing, [but] we could have won them.”

Those defeats have not shaken Khan’s faith in his HC/GM duo.

“I still believe in them. I believe in the players, I believe in the coaching staff. I believe in Trent,” Khan said. “Obviously, the results are disappointing for all of them, just as well as me or any other Jaguar fan, but, the key thing one has to understand [is] we have evolved and really got to a level. I think we’ve got the players, we’ve got the coaching, we’ve got the facilities.”

Khan did say this offseason that the Jaguars’ 2024 roster is the best in franchise history, and that winning is the expectation. As such, it would be reasonable to expect a shake-up if Pederson cannot engineer a turnaround and lead the team to a postseason berth, but for now, Khan does not appear to be contemplating a dismissal.

“I admire what Trent’s done, Doug’s done, and I think, how do we support them to have better results, more wins?” Khan said.

The Jaguars, the NFL club with the most consistent presence in England, will play their next two games in London. Should they falter in their contests across the pond, one wonders if Khan’s support for Pederson & Co. will remain strong.

Relationship Between Doug Pederson, Trent Baalke “Strained”; Latest On Jaguars’ HC, GM

September 29th, 2024 at 10:15pm CST by Rory Parks

Earlier this week, it was reported that Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson’s job could soon be in jeopardy given his team’s uninspired, 0-3 start to the 2024 season. Sources that spoke to Jason La Canfora of the Washington Post appear to be in agreement that Jacksonville will indeed be making changes to its coaching staff and/or front office in the near future.

One GM told La Canfora that Pederson would be the first HC dismissed this year, and that, “it’s just a matter of time now. [Trevor Lawrence] hasn’t looked right since they made the playoffs [in 2022], [Pederson]’s offense is terrible, and the defensive coordinator (Ryan Nielsen) looks totally in over his head. That’s a bad football team.”

On the other hand, sources tell Jonathan Jones of CBS Sports that it is unclear exactly what changes owner Shad Khan could realistically make in-season. While much of the blame for the Jags’ poor start has been focused on Pederson and offensive coordinator Press Taylor – which is understandable, given that the team currently ranks 30th in scoring – there is no clear choice to replace either man on the coaching staff at the moment.

Mike McCoy, who currently serves as Jacksonville’s quarterbacks coach, has not coordinated an offense since 2018, when he worked as the Cardinals’ head coach and oversaw a unit that struggled, which led to his own midseason ouster. And while Pederson could certainly take play-calling duties back from Taylor – as owner Shad Khan not-so-subtly suggested should happen back in June – retaining Pederson while firing Taylor seems unlikely.

“No one on staff can replace what Press does for [Pederson],” a source told Jones. Added another source, “I understand everyone’s narrative would be to fire Press. But even from a practical standpoint, I don’t know how you successfully game plan if you fire him. You’re wasting [Lawrence’s] season by doing that.”

Our story from a few days ago indicated that GM Trent Baalke was perhaps on firmer footing than Pederson, though the Jaguars’ struggles obviously are not doing him any favors either. Both Jones and La Canfora make note of Baalke’s ill-fated decision to use the No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 draft on Travon Walker rather than Aidan Hutchinson, to say nothing of the top-of-the-market extension authorized for Lawrence this offseason, a transaction that has already garnered heavy criticism.

Per Jones, the relationship between Baalke and Pederson is strained, and there is “misalignment from owner to GM and head coach.” Fox Sports’ Ralph Vacchiano, like Jones, says the fact that there is no obvious Pederson replacement on the staff could help the embattled HC at least get the chance to finish out the year. That said, if the losses continue to mount, Khan may feel compelled to pull the trigger on a midseason overhaul, in which case he might be making a call to Bill Belichick.

Jaguars GM Trent Baalke On QB Trevor Lawrence

January 28th, 2024 at 8:09am CST by Rory Parks

Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence, who now has three years of service time under his belt, is eligible for a contract extension. Our Sam Robinson, however, suggested at the end of December that Jacksonville may wait to enter into extension talks with the former No. 1 overall pick, who did not take the leap forward that many had anticipated when the 2023 season began. Jags GM Trent Baalke did not put a timetable on those dicussions, but he did imply that a new deal for Lawrence is not exactly at the top of the agenda at the moment.

“As far as Trevor and the long-term relationship with this team, there’s no doubt in that,” Baalke said at a press conference on Thursday (via Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk). “We’re going to get something done at the appropriate time.”

The Jaguars will surely exercise Lawrence’s fifth-year option sometime before the May 2 deadline. That will lock in a fully-guaranteed salary of $21.98MM for the 2025 season, and when combined with the $1.06MM salary he is due to make in 2024, Jacksonville essentially has Lawrence under club control for two more years at an $11.5MM AAV. Even if the Clemson product is not yet a top tier signal-caller, that qualifies as excellent value.

When asked to assess Lawrence’s performance in 2023 and how to improve his production moving foreard, Baalke said, “I think Trevor had another learning year, right? Like we all do when we’re a third-year guy in this league. I think there are some areas he made great strides in. You look at this season, one thing we’ve got to do is we’ve got to — two things, it works both ways — we’ve got to do a better job of keeping him safe and protected and he’s got to do a better job of protecting himself.”

Baalke referenced the myriad injuries that Lawrence faced in his third year in the league, including a concussion, a knee sprain, an ankle sprain, and a sprained AC joint. Although Lawrence was able to play through the first three of those ailments, they certainly affected his performance, and the sprained AC joint forced him to sit out Jacksonville’s Week 17 contest against the Panthers. That was the first game that Lawrence had missed in his career.

In his final four games of the 2023 campaign, Lawrence failed to post a quarterback rating above 83.9 and completed 60% of his passes for seven touchdowns and seven interceptions. Jacksonville lost all four of those contests, including a Week 18 matchup with the 5-11 Titans that was meaningless for Tennessee but that would have put the Jaguars in the playoffs as AFC South champions if they had won it. In all, the Jags lost five of their last six games to drop them from contention for the conference’s top seed to a postseason non-participant (the only game the club won in that stretch was the Week 17 contest that Lawrence missed).

Now 24, Lawrence still has time to live up to the vast potential that made him such a coveted prospect when he entered the professional ranks. It may even be fair to write off his rookie season in 2021, which was spent primarily under the disastrous stewardship of then-HC Urban Meyer. Nonetheless, Baalke may want to see a step forward in 2024 before making any significant contractual decisions.

In 2023, Lawrence completed 65.6% of his passes for 4,016 yards and 21 TDs against 14 interceptions, good for a QB rating of 88.5. He did run for 339 yards on 70 carries (4.8 YPC), tallying four rushing touchdowns in the process.

The NFL’s Longest-Tenured GMs

July 6th, 2023 at 9:25am CST by Sam Robinson

The latest NFL general manager hiring cycle only produced two changes, but each took over for an executive who appeared in good standing at this point last year.

Steve Keim had held his Cardinals GM post since January 2013, and the Cardinals gave both he and Kliff Kingsbury extensions — deals that ran through 2027 — in March of last year. Arizona has since rebooted, moving on from both Keim and Kingsbury. Keim took a leave of absence late last season, and the Cardinals replaced him with ex-Titans exec Monti Ossenfort.

As the Cardinals poached one of the Titans’ top front office lieutenants, Tennessee went with an NFC West staffer to replace Jon Robinson. The move to add 49ers FO bastion Ran Carthon also came less than a year after the Titans reached extension agreements with both Robinson and HC Mike Vrabel. But controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk canned Robinson — in place as GM since January 2016 — before last season ended. Adams Strunk cited player unavailability and roster quality among the reasons she chose to move on despite having extended Robinson through the 2027 draft months earlier. The Titans are now pairing Vrabel and Carthon.

The Bills reached an extension agreement with GM Brandon Beane two weeks ago. Hired shortly after the team gave Sean McDermott the HC keys, Beane has helped the Bills to five playoff berths in six seasons. Beane’s deal keeps him signed through 2027. Chargers GM Tom Telesco has hit the 10-year mark leading that front office, while this year also marks the 10th offseason of Buccaneers honcho Jason Licht‘s tenure running the NFC South team. Although Jim Irsay fired Frank Reich and later admitted he reluctantly extended his former HC in 2021, the increasingly active Colts owner has expressed confidence in Chris Ballard.

Here is how the NFL’s GM landscape looks going into the 2023 season:

Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys): April 18, 1989^[1]
Mike Brown (Cincinnati Bengals): August 5, 1991^[2]
Bill Belichick (New England Patriots): January 27, 2000^[3]
Mickey Loomis (New Orleans Saints): May 14, 2002
John Schneider (Seattle Seahawks): January 19, 2010; signed extension in 2021
Howie Roseman (Philadelphia Eagles): January 29, 2010; signed extension in 2022
Les Snead (Los Angeles Rams): February 10, 2012; signed extension in 2022
Tom Telesco (Los Angeles Chargers): January 9, 2013; signed extension in 2018
Jason Licht (Tampa Bay Buccaneers): January 21, 2014; signed extension in 2021
Chris Grier (Miami Dolphins): January 4, 2016^[4]
John Lynch (San Francisco 49ers): January 29, 2017; signed extension in 2020
Chris Ballard (Indianapolis Colts): January 30, 2017; signed extension in 2021
Brandon Beane (Buffalo Bills): May 9, 2017; signed extension in 2023
Brett Veach (Kansas City Chiefs): July 11, 2017; signed extension in 2020
Brian Gutekunst (Green Bay Packers): January 7, 2018; agreed to extension in 2022
Eric DeCosta (Baltimore Ravens): January 7, 2019
Joe Douglas (New York Jets): June 7, 2019
Andrew Berry (Cleveland Browns): January 27, 2020
Nick Caserio (Houston Texans): January 5, 2021
George Paton (Denver Broncos): January 13, 2021
Scott Fitterer (Carolina Panthers): January 14, 2021
Brad Holmes (Detroit Lions): January 14, 2021
Terry Fontenot (Atlanta Falcons): January 19, 2021
Trent Baalke (Jacksonville Jaguars): January 21, 2021
Martin Mayhew (Washington Commanders): January 22, 2021
Joe Schoen (New York Giants): January 21, 2022
Ryan Poles (Chicago Bears): January 25, 2022
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah (Minnesota Vikings): January 26, 2022
Dave Ziegler (Las Vegas Raiders): January 30, 2022
Omar Khan (Pittsburgh Steelers): May 24, 2022
Monti Ossenfort (Arizona Cardinals): January 16, 2023
Ran Carthon (Tennessee Titans): January 17, 2023

Footnotes:

Jones has been the Cowboys’ de facto general manager since former GM Tex Schramm resigned in April 1989.
Brown has been the Bengals’ de facto GM since taking over as the team’s owner in August 1991.
Belichick has been the Patriots’ de facto GM since shortly after being hired as the team’s head coach in January 2000.
Although Grier was hired in 2016, he became the Dolphins’ top football exec on Dec. 31, 2018

Bills Believed Cowboys Were Eyeing Dalton Kincaid; Jags Feared Losing Anton Harrison

May 11th, 2023 at 10:15pm CST by Sam Robinson

The Bills made a concerted effort to leapfrog the Cowboys for tight end Dalton Kincaid. Shortly after the Steelers made a move up due to a belief the Jets would draft tackle Broderick Jones, the Bills discussed trade-ups with multiple teams with Kincaid in mind.

Although the Cowboys are not certain to have been targeting Kincaid, Albert Breer of SI.com notes GM Brandon Beane viewed it as likely. After attempting to trade into the Giants’ No. 25 overall spot, the Bills contacted the Jaguars, who traded back with New York and into that position. The Jags gave the Bills the draft real estate, but they wanted some assurances before doing so.

Once Beane called Jaguars GM Trent Baalke, the AFC South exec asked who the Bills were targeting. With Beane not confirming Kincaid was the endpoint in a layered process, Breer adds Baalke asked his Bills counterpart if this trade was for an offensive or defensive player and if it was for a big or small player. As Kincaid is a tight end by trade, Beane replied, “Medium,” before admitting Kincaid would be Buffalo’s pick.

Had the Jaguars balked at the trade, which sent them Nos. 27 and 130, Breer adds the Bills had trade parameters worked out with three teams. The move, should the Jags declined the Bills’ trade offer and the Cowboys taken Kincaid at 26, would have been to slide out of the first round. The Titans were one of the teams that worked out a trade with the Bills, who would have dropped down to No. 41 in that scenario. That trade-up for Tennessee — presumably for Will Levis, whose contract would have carried a fifth-year option if chosen at No. 27 — would have been costlier than the one it eventually made for the Kentucky prospect. The Titans gave the Cardinals Nos. 41 and 72 this year and a 2024 third to climb to 33 for Levis a day later.

After two trade-down moves, the Jaguars chose Anton Harrison at 27. Jacksonville was prepared to take Harrison at 24 and took a chance Dallas would pass on him at 26, and ESPN.com’s Jeremy Fowler adds the Jags see Jawaan Taylor-like traits in Harrison. This points to Harrison, once Cam Robinson returns from his PED suspension, lining up at right tackle. Taylor, the Jags’ four-year right-side starter, defected to the Chiefs in free agency. Harrison, whom the Raiders liked in the event they accepted a Cardinals trade-down offer, played almost exclusively at left tackle during his Oklahoma tenure. He started 23 games on the left side and just one at RT.

The Jags, however, still do not know how long Robinson’s suspension will last. They still have Walker Little, a 2021 second-round pick who replaced Robinson following his late-season meniscus tear, in place as insurance. Dallas ended up taking Michigan defensive tackle Mazi Smith and was considering Syracuse offensive lineman Matthew Bergeron. The team chose a tight end, Michigan’s Luke Schoonmaker, with its second-round pick.

Buffalo will pair Kincaid with Dawson Knox, who signed a long-term extension just before last season. Kincaid, who rated as Scouts Inc.’s top 2023 tight end after he caught 70 passes for 890 yards and eight touchdowns last season, is expected to spent frequent time in the slot. The Bills saw Jamison Crowder suffer a fractured ankle last season and released Isaiah McKenzie after he struggled with drops. Cole Beasley, lured out of retirement during the season, is no longer under contract.

“If Dalton was not there, we would have traded back,” Beane said, via ESPN.com’s Alaina Getzenberg. “… We just really liked him and just felt he would be a great fit in our offense. He is a tight end, but he is a receiving tight end. We think he’ll pair well with Dawson and give us another target in the middle of the field. So, yeah, when him and Dawson are in the game, you’re in ’12’ [personnel], but it’s quasi like ’11’ anyway. He’s not your standard ‘Y’ tight end. He’s going to be flexed out a lot more than necessarily you would do with Dawson.”

Post-Draft Notes: Seahawks, Washington, Jaguars

April 30th, 2023 at 9:40pm CST by Ely Allen

The Seahawks were able to obtain both the top cornerback and top wide receiver on their board last Thursday when they drafted Illinois cornerback Devon Witherspoon at No. 5 overall and Ohio State wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba at No. 20 overall. There had been rumors that Seattle had their eyes on Jalen Carter at No. 5, but with some troubling pre-draft issues, Carter wasn’t likely worth a top-five pick anymore.

A few teams had ideas of trading into Seattle’s pick and there’s a chance the Seahawks would’ve listened. General manager John Schneider, though, clarified that there were two players who would’ve prevented the Seahawks from trading down, according to Bob Condotta of The Seattle Times. Witherspoon happened to be one of them.

It’s unclear who the other player might have been or if they were even still available, but the Seahawks didn’t trade out of their top draft spot, so it’s clear that they were able to get their guy in Witherspoon.

Here are a few other rumors following the 2023 NFL Draft:

New Steelers tight end Darnell Washington experienced a bit of a slide in the draft this weekend. The former-Georgia Bulldog had a first- to second-round grade going into the Thursday with many expecting him to be the fourth or fifth tight end off the board. Especially after a run of tight ends started in the second round, it was surprising not to hear Washington’s name called. According to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, injuries were the reason for the slide. Washington’s knee was a concern, but reportedly, there were other things on his medical that contributed to teams’ hesitancy, as well. The scout giving this information also called the slide “laughable,” asserting that he expects Washington to play for a long time in the NFL.
The Jaguars had a number of Day 3 picks that they used on Saturday. 10 to be exact. It sounds like they tried to sell some of them off and failed. According to ESPN’s Michael DiRocco, Jacksonville’s general manager, Trent Baalke, attempted to trade up in the draft’s later round and got denied. Multiple times. “We went through 15 or 16 teams when we were trying to trade up,” Baalke told the media. “Every team behind us and not one would make a move.”

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