Jacksonville Jaguars have a 'good roster' according to scout

With the Jacksonville Jaguars beginning a search for a new head coach, there’s been discussions about how desirable the job is and how much talent there is on the roster.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have two games left in the 2016 regular season, but it’s already time to start looking to the future. With the recent dismissal of head coach Gus Bradley, general manager David Caldwell is getting another shot to find a head coach who can take the talent he’s assembled and win games.

The preceding sentence begs the following question:

Just how much talent do the Jaguars actually have?

There are strong opinions on both ends of the spectrum to that question, largely because the actual evaluation of the players is difficult given the horrendous coaching they endured.

The discussion of the amount of tangible and foundational talent begins with the quarterback. Blake Bortles had his detractors before the 2016 season despite a breakout 2015 campaign, and he’s unfortunately proved his doubters right thus far. Bortles has struggled mightily this season and the regression in his mechanics is a disheartening development that illuminates the young quarterback’s mismanagement of offseason priorities (i.e., not tweaking his mechanics further with guru Tom House).

Bortles aside though, does this team have the talent have to compete soon? An anonymous scout who recently talked to Bleacher Report’s Matt Miller for a piece about “fixing bad teams” thinks so:

Scout’s Take: “This is a good roster. Dave [Caldwell] gave the coaches a team to win with. The right coach has them very competitive in a few seasons, max.”

This is an encouraging opinion, albeit a brief one. I’d be interested to see the scout elaborate about his thoughts, particularly how he feels about Bortles. The Jaguars clearly aren’t married to Bortles long-term (as indicated by Caldwell in a recent press conference), so I wonder if he thinks an upgrade at quarterback is a given.

Miller talks a little more in the article about Bortles:

The priority for many will be fixing Blake Bortles at quarterback, which is why guys like Shanahan and McDaniels will be linked to the job, but getting players such as Dante Fowler Jr. and Myles Jack in positions to win ballgames is of equal importance.

McDaniels is personally my favorite for the job.

Going back to Miller, this is a relatively restrained article considering the stream of low-hanging fruit takes that is his timeline. He clearly does not like Bortles and is part of the Twitter contingent that piles it on when he struggles.

He also provided a 7-round mock draft systematically addresses the team’s needs:

Rd 1—DL Jonathan Allen, Alabama
Rd 2—G Dan Feeney, Indiana
Rd 3—RB Royce Freeman, Oregon
Rd 4—QB Davis Webb, California
Rd 5—DE Jordan Willis, Kansas State
Rd 6—T Jon Heck, North Carolina
Rd 7—S Nathan Gerry, Nebraska

I wouldn’t mind this at all, considering Miller checked off basically every box in terms of what the Jaguars need to upgrade this offseason. I think the idea of a “developmental” quarterback in the mid-to-late rounds is a huge wild card since the Jaguars just did that with Brandon Allen last year, but who knows.