B-
Jacksonville Jaguars
A sensible, unshowy class lands the Jaguars a B-.
by GOATman123 ·
2026 NFL Draft
· 11 picks
· 5 steals
· 4 reaches
The Jaguars bet big and early on Clayton Smith, 209 picks ahead of the board. Bold does not always mean right. It nets out to a B-, which feels about right.
Whatever else happened, they won the night they took Bentley. For all the activity, interior defensive lineman went untouched, which is hard to explain. The Sapp pick is fine in a vacuum, less so with interior defensive lineman, safety and other spots still on the board.
They left with wide receiver solved and the rest of the wish list mostly ticked off.
All told, a draft that does its job without fuss, and there is real value in that.
Pick-by-Pick
They stopped a slide they were happy to see, landing Joshua Josephs in Round 2, Pick 24. Not urgent, but hardly pointless.
Drew Shelton at slot 81 is a clear overpay, with better names still on the board. It answers the question that was keeping the coaches up at night.
Elijah Sarratt slipping to the 88th overall pick is the kind of luck good rooms make for themselves. A must-fix position, and they treated it like one.
Emmett Johnson in pick No. 100 is exactly on the number, no argument either way. It shores up a spot that genuinely needed the help.
Hard to square with the roster. With positions of obvious need still on the board, Tyreak Sapp adds an edge rusher and leaves interior defensive lineman, safety and other spots untouched.
They read the board right and Jaeden Roberts was the payoff at the 164th pick. The biggest hole on the depth chart just got a whole lot smaller.
Domani Jackson in slot 166 is early enough to raise a brow, if not a full objection. This was priority one on the needs board, and now it is handled.
This one needs a full-page explanation: Clayton Smith in the 203rd pick, miles early. They added to a strength when a need was still open elsewhere.
Kobe Baynes in the Round 7 slot should not have been possible, and that is the whole point. The one spot they could not leave alone, and did not.
They did well to land Dane Key in No. 240, just ahead of his grade. It also answers one of the loudest questions on the roster.
Dallen Bentley at pick 245 is daylight robbery; nobody expected him to last. It patches a soft spot without any drama.