Jacksonville Jaguars: Telvin Smith situation concerning on multiple levels

Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Telvin Smith surprisingly announced that he won’t play in 2019, which raises eyebrows for a number of reasons.

On Thursday, Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Telvin Smith delivered some shocking news to the NFL world. The linebacker who Jacksonville selected in the fifth round back in 2014 announced via his Instagram account (h/t ESPN’s Adam Schefter) that he plans to sit out for the 2019 season due to his personal and mental health.

First off, if Smith needs to take a year away from football to make sure that his mental health is in order or to deal with family issues, then he by all means should. Football, even if a job that pays players a large amount of money, is just a game at the end of the day. Personal matters and long-term mental health should take precedence when necessary.

Having said that, the Smith situation is concerning for a couple of reasons that don’t remotely concern the notion of “I can’t believe this guy isn’t playing football.” For the Jaguars, the concern starts on the field.

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Smith had the worst season of his career since his rookie campaign a season ago, there’s no one who would mistake 2018 for Jacksonville as anything short of a debacle. When stuck in that type of quicksand as a team, individual performances tend to dip. After all, few would argue that Smith’s teammate Jalen Ramsey is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, but he didn’t perform at that level consistently a season ago. It happens when the wheels fall off.

Subsequently, as the Jaguars have focused heavily on getting the wheels back on the wagon in the 2019 offseason, there was reason to believe that Smith was primed to bounce back. As a versatile athlete in the middle of the field, he plays a unique and invaluable role on the defense, which they will now seemingly have to replace.

The issue, however, is that they don’t have a replacement that immediately offers the level of play that Smith is capable of. Jacksonville drafted Quincy Williams (brother of Quinnen) in the third round of the 2019 draft and, physically, he could theoretically fill in for Smith, but he’s far from a polished player that you could feel confident trotting him out there right now.

While the on-field result of not having Smith in 2019 is evident, there is also an issue off the field. In the wake of the linebacker’s announcement, the Jaguars released the following statement on Twitter:

In a vacuum, that statement reads like a team and front office just as taken aback by Smith’s announcement as the general public was. If that is the case, that’s terribly concerning in regards to how the organization is being run. Sure, the front office shouldn’t be involved in every minute aspect of a player’s life, but for a player to be considering sitting out a full season and the team seemingly not have an indication that could be happening is something more than that.

With the discord that has been present recently, be it through Ramsey or Leonard Fournette, as it pertains to the coaching and front office, there is definite reason to think that things could be in a bad spot for Jacksonville moving forward. We’ll have to see if that continues to come to fruitiion with further developments regarding Telvin Smith and then beyond.