Jaguars — 2026 Draft Recap

Welcome back to Muffed. The Jaguars walked into the 2026 NFL Draft without a first-round pick — that capital was spent earlier — and James Gladstone's answer was volume. Ten picks, no trade-ups, a board mapped the day before kickoff that Gladstone says they hit on ten of eleven slots. The haul: two tight ends, two receivers, a guard, two defensive ends, a defensive tackle, a safety, a linebacker. Fill-the-roster, not fireworks — and the real story is how aggressively this front office chased athletic outliers in the middle and late rounds.

The passing game got four of the ten, and the headliner is Texas A&M tight end Nate Boerkircher at pick 56. The college line is modest — 20 catches, 204 yards, 3 touchdowns — but the efficiency was loud: plus 0.77 predicted points added per play in the SEC, the college equivalent of NFL expected points added, and plus 20 on the season. Pair that with a Relative Athletic Score of 8.86 — and Relative Athletic Score, by the way, is Kent Lee Platte's 0-to-10 grade benchmarking combine and pro-day testing against every player at the position since 1987. So Boerkircher tests in the top 12 percent of tight ends ever measured. Then in round 5 they doubled up with Houston's Tanner Koziol, and this is where it gets fun. Koziol's 74 catches for 727 yards led the entire Big 12 and ranked 22nd nationally at any position. Relative Athletic Score: 9.57. Top 5 percent of tight ends all time. Gladstone called him one of the most productive pass catchers in college football history depending on how you slice it, and flagged red-zone value for Trevor Lawrence. That's a smashed Day 3 swing. The receivers came in round 6 — Baylor's Josh Cameron (69 catches, 872 yards, 9 touchdowns, fourth in the Big 12 in receiving yards, plus 0.45 predicted points added per play) and Stanford's CJ Williams (60-757-6, plus 0.57 per play, a solidly average 5.75 Relative Athletic Score). Gladstone praised both as tough and as quality blockers. That tells you what kind of receiver room they're building.

One offensive line pick — but an athletic one. Oregon guard Emmanuel Pregnon at pick 88 posted a 9.15 Relative Athletic Score, top 9 percent of guards all time. The Jaguars surrendered 41 sacks and 83 quarterback hits in 2025; Pregnon doesn't fix that alone, but the testing profile says they wanted a mover on the interior.

Run defense got reinforced early on Day 2 — and reinforced is the right word. The 2025 Jaguars allowed minus 14.33 rushing expected points added, meaning they cost opposing rushing offenses real value. Texas A&M defensive tackle Albert Regis at pick 81 — 49 tackles, 3 for loss, 2 sacks, and 3 pass breakups, unusual for an interior big — adds an 8.49 Relative Athletic Score, top 16 percent of defensive tackles ever tested. Reinforcement, not rescue. They closed the class with Middle Tennessee State linebacker Parker Hughes at pick 240, a 7.59 Relative Athletic Score. Gladstone talked him up — speed, ball-tracking, special-teams heat from the coaches — and called instincts the trait that matters most at off-ball linebacker. That's the case for taking him with the final pick instead of letting him hit the undrafted pool.

The pass defense got three picks, and the one Gladstone got most animated about was Duke edge Wesley Williams at pick 119. Williams put up 43 tackles, 8 for loss, 2 sacks, and a 7.52 Relative Athletic Score — top 25 percent of defensive ends measured. The hook: he disrupts both run and pass, plus five blocked kicks in college that Gladstone said he went back and watched specifically and described as more than happenstance. At pick 100 they took Maryland safety Jalen Huskey, 72 tackles and 2 pass breakups with a 7.01 Relative Athletic Score — solid testing, modest production. And the late-round dart is Washington edge Zach Durfee at pick 233, who tested at 9.78. Top 3 percent of defensive ends ever measured. Durfee posted 37 tackles, 5 for loss, 4 sacks; Gladstone said he only dug in on him about three weeks before the draft, surfaced by area scouts and the undrafted-free-agent committee. For a seventh-rounder, that's the swing you want.

Pick of the draft for me is Koziol. You can argue Boerkircher on draft slot, Regis on surest fit, Pregnon on pure testing — Koziol wins on the gap between where he was taken and what he actually is. A Power 4 receptions leader at tight end, top 5 percent Relative Athletic Score, in round 5, on a team whose 2025 offense converted just 21 percent of red-zone snaps into touchdowns. Gladstone explicitly framed him as a big target for Trevor Lawrence inside the 20. Role logic and value gap line up cleanly. Smashed pick of the weekend.

The 2026 question: can a volume class with no first-rounder move the needle on a defense that already played well — minus 94.2 pass-defense expected points added in 2025, genuinely good — and an offense that finished plus 35.69 in passing expected points added but stalled at 21 percent red-zone touchdown rate? The bet is on the margins: two athletic tight ends, two tough-and-blocking receivers, a high-testing guard, edge depth ranging from a 7.52 grinder to a 9.78 outlier. If Koziol becomes the red-zone target Gladstone described and Williams or Durfee gives Jacksonville real rotational juice off the edge, this volume class will have done exactly what a volume class is supposed to do. Ten picks, ten swings, a board they mapped and hit. That's a class to track.