Jacksonville Jaguars

Thirty-one takeaways. Top two in the entire league, and the engine that turned this Jaguars season from interesting into a thirteen-win division title. Here's how Jacksonville's defense became a takeaway machine, how Trevor Lawrence quietly finished fifth in the NFL in passing touchdowns, and the one number that explains why the Wild Card loss to Buffalo still stings. Thirteen and four. AFC South champs, three seed in the AFC, 27-24 Wild Card exit to the Bills. The Jags didn't just sneak in — they bullied their division and built a defensive identity the rest of the conference will be staring at all offseason.

Start with the team-level portrait. The defense finished at minus 108.5 expected points added allowed — third in the league, ninety-fourth percentile, and on defense that big negative is elite. The offense was a respectable plus 32.7, middle of the pack at fourteenth. Add thirty-one takeaways — twenty-two interceptions, nine fumble recoveries — and you have a team that won the turnover battle nearly every Sunday. But this was not a steady ride. Jacksonville got smashed 35-7 by the Rams in Week 7, lost a shootout in Houston 36-29 in Week 10, then ripped off seven straight to close the regular season, including a 41-7 demolition of Tennessee in Week 18. Started bumpy, finished dominant.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Trevor Lawrence posted plus 35.9 passing expected points added on 606 attempts — roughly plus 0.06 per attempt, eleventh in the league, sixty-ninth percentile. Solid, not spectacular. The headline is the touchdowns: twenty-nine through the air, fifth-most in the NFL, plus nine on the ground. Thirty-eight total scores from your quarterback is star-level production. But the efficiency tells a different story — 60.9 completion percentage against an expected 63.6, so minus 2.7 percent completion over expected, thirtieth among qualified starters. He found the end zone but missed throws he should've hit, and the offense absorbed forty-one sacks along the way. Parker Washington led a true committee with 58 catches for 847 yards and 5 touchdowns. Boom-or-bust in the air: 48 points one week against the Jets, 7 against the Rams.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. The ground game was just okay on paper — 1,958 yards, 115.2 a game, 4 per carry, twentieth in the league, forty-first percentile, with a rushing expected points added of minus 7.2. Where it mattered was the goal line: twenty-two rushing touchdowns is real volume in close. Travis Etienne carried the load — 260 carries, 1,107 yards, 4.3 a clip, seven scores — and his rush yards over expected was plus 43.9, plus 0.2 per attempt. Translation: Etienne was a hair better than his blocking asked of him, not by a wide margin. Steady floor, modest ceiling — capable of cracking a long one and stealing a hidden score.

Next up, the pass defense. This is the unit that defined the season. Minus 94.2 passing expected points added allowed — ninety-seventh percentile, elite. The Jaguars surrendered 231 passing yards a game and 25 passing scores, but they took the ball away constantly: twenty-two interceptions, ninety-seventh percentile in takeaways. The one wart? Just 32 sacks, nineteenth percentile — they generated pressure but didn't finish. The signature moment: Week 5 against Kansas City, third quarter, tied at 14, Chiefs at the Jacksonville 3, second and 3. Devin Lloyd jumped a Patrick Mahomes throw at the goal line and took it 99 yards the other way for a pick-six — a fourteen-point swing in a game Jacksonville won 31-28. That play is the defensive identity of the season: the bend doesn't break, and the takeaway shows up in the worst possible spot for the offense.

And the run defense. Tighter story here. Jacksonville allowed 86.3 rushing yards a game and just 13 rushing scores all year, with a per-carry expected points added allowed of minus 0.04 — a solid fifty-ninth percentile finish, steady floor without an elite ceiling. Not the wall the pass defense was, but comfortably above average, and crucially they didn't get gashed when it mattered. Combine that with the takeaway rate and you understand why this defense finished third in the NFL by expected points: opposing offenses couldn't lean on the run to control the game, and the moment they trusted their quarterback's arm too much, the Jaguars cashed in.

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.