In every NFL post season, anticipation starts to mount towards the end of March. It’s not about the months ahead when football will be played again. It’s about the annual draft held in late April when the 32 teams in the NFL snap up the cream of the crop of college footballers.
For college football fans, this can be when they see talents they have watched developing get the recognition they deserve. For the players themselves, this is their chance to step into the big world and show their skills on the biggest football stage.
It’s a handy feature of the draft that, in an attempt to even up the playing field, the less successful teams from the previous season get to pick first in each of the draft’s seven rounds.
This means that an underperforming franchise like the Jacksonville Jaguars, one of the four teams in the NFL never to have made it to the Superbowl and whose odds in the NFL lines often reflect this, have had some great draft opportunities in the past.
Here are seven of the best picked up between 2014 and 2022.
Allen Robinson 2014
Wide receiver Robinson was picked up in the second round of the 2014 draft, making him the 61st pick overall. He’d had a distinguished record at Penn State, winning the Richter–Howard Receiver of the Year award for two years. He signed a four-year contract with the Jaguars and played for only three of them following an ACL injury picked up in the first game of the 2017 season. But up until then, he had enjoyed considerable success with 202 receptions for 2,848 yards and 22 touchdowns in his time with the team.
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Jalen Ramsay 2016
Cornerback Ramsay came from Florida State and was the fifth pick in round one of 2016. Before his controversial exit from the team in 2019, following an argument with coach Doug Marrone, he had had a stellar three seasons. Playing in every game, he qualified for two Pro Bowl trips and received First Team All-Pro recognition, too. In the 2017 season, the Jaguars achieved a first-place finish in the AFC South, and most commentators agreed that Ramsay had been an instrumental factor in this achievement.
Yannick Ngakoue 2016
2016 was a bumper year for draft signings for the Jaguars,with Ngakoue being another star performer. Coming straight out of Maryland, he was the third-round, 69th pick. The defensive end missed just one game in the four seasons he was on the team before moving on to the Minnesota Vikings. 2017 was also an exceptional season, as he was second-highest with 12 sacks. His overall career record with the team was 37.5 sacks, 85 QB hits, and 14 forced fumbles.
Josh Allen 2019
Picked up as a first-round number-seven draftee from Kentucky, Josh Allen is another defensive end still on the roster. He certainly hit the ground running, recording the franchise record for a rookie with 10.5 sacks in his first season. He was also the first-ever rookie in the history of the Jaguars to be chosen for a Pro Bowl. Since then, he has enjoyed several other highlights. In a game in 2021, this included becoming the first player ever to record a sack, interception, and fumble recovery from a quarterback with the same name, the Buffalo Bills’ Josh Allen.
Tyson Campbell 2021
Tyson Campbell was a second-round pick and 33rd overall in the 2021 draft. He had excelled as a cornerback at Georgia before the Jaguars snapped him up. His first season saw him completing 73 tackles, two interceptions, and ten passes defended. He continued with these kinds of figures in his second season, and another high spot for him came in week 17 in a game against the Houston Texans. Following a 12-yard fumble recovery, he made a touchdown in the 31-3 victory for the Jaguars. In July this year, he signed a four-year contract extension with the team worth $76.5 million.
Trevor Lawrence 2021
As soon as he first caught the eye, turning out as quarterback for Clemson, great things were predicted for Trevor Lawrence. So it came as no big surprise when the Jaguars picked him up as the first pick in the first round of the 2021 draft. It’s probably fair to say that he’s not entirely lived up to expectations yet, but there have been flashes of genius, such as in the 2023 wild-card game against the LA Chargers when he threw four touchdown passes, contributing to a 31-10 win.
So now we wait to see how this last season’s draftees, including Brian Thomas Jr., Maason Smith, and Jarrian Jones, shape up—and we look forward to next April’s action, too.
