The Jacksonville Jaguars are finally a team on the rise as we approach the 2023 season, but it’s taken years of trial and error as far as team-building is concerned. The Jaguars have tried spending a ton of money in free agency combined with constantly picking high in the NFL Draft, and they’ve certainly had some mixed results.
Lately, the results have been better and it looks like Trevor Lawrence is going to be the star at the quarterback position this franchise has so desperately coveted.
But which players have the Jacksonville Jaguars given up on too soon? Which players could have helped this team but the Jaguars decided to move on? Let’s look at the top three players the Jaguars gave up on too early, focusing mainly on the last 20 years.
Top 3 players the Jacksonville Jaguars gave up on too soon
3. Reggie Nelson, safety
The Jacksonville Jaguars once used a first-round pick (21st overall) on Reggie Nelson back in the 2007 NFL Draft. Nelson was an immediate impact player for the Jaguars, picking off five passes in his rookie season with 11 passes defensed, two forced fumbles, and 62 total tackles. He probably should have made the Pro Bowl in his rookie season, but all that production did was lead to eventual unmet expectations as far as the Jaguars were concerned.
After three seasons with the team, Nelson was traded to the Cincinnati Bengals for safety David Jones and a conditional draft choice that ended up being a seventh-round pick in 2012. From 2010-2015, Reggie Nelson was one of the better safeties in the NFL. He picked off 23 passes with the Bengals and only missed three games over six seasons.
He was named an All-Pro and Pro Bowl player in the 2015 season, his last year with the Bengals, before joining the Raiders in 2016. He made another Pro Bowl in his first year with the Raiders and wound up picking off 8 more passes in three seasons there in Oakland.
Overall, it’s clear that the Bengals didn’t wait long enough for Nelson to truly become the best version of himself.
2. Brandon Marshall, linebacker
You can’t really fault a team for throwing in the towel on day three draft picks, at least not typically. Day 3 picks are often a crapshoot as it is. They bounce up and down the active roster and the practice squad and if you can find starters in rounds 4-7, you consider that a massive victory for your scouting department.
The Jacksonville Jaguars landed Nevada linebacker Brandon Marshall in the fifth round of the 2012 NFL Draft and many people felt like that pick was a steal at the time. Marshall had been a consistently productive player for four years at Nevada where he racked up 102 tackles and 7.5 tackles for loss in his senior season.
Unfortunately, even though he cracked the Jaguars’ roster in his rookie year with the team, his presence in Jacksonville was short-lived. He was active for just five games in his rookie season and the Jaguars waived him at the time of final cuts in 2013. The Denver Broncos added him to the practice squad in 2013 and Peyton Manning took notice of Marshall on the practice squad, lobbying the coaching staff to get the guy a gameday roster spot.
By the time the 2014 season rolled around, Marshall was starting alongside Danny Trevathan for one of the best linebacker groups in the NFL. He had 112 total tackles and 11 tackles for loss in his first year as a starter with the Denver Broncos.
Marshall ended up being one of the key players on the legendary Super Bowl 50 defense for the Denver Broncos, earning a big-money contract with the team and starting for five seasons.
1. Yannick Ngakoue, defensive end/edge
For the life of me, I can’t figure out what makes Yannick Ngakoue such a tradeable commodity to NFL teams. Ngakoue has really bounced around the league since the Jaguars drafted him in the third round of the 2016 NFL Draft (69th overall).
The Jaguars traded Ngakoue to the Minnesota Vikings for second-and-fifth-round picks in 2020. Just two months later, Ngakoue was traded by the Vikings to the Ravens for third-and-fifth-round picks. After playing the 2020 season with the Ravens and Vikings, Ngakoue wound up signing a free agent deal with the Raiders in 2021.
After just one season with the Raiders, Ngakoue was traded to the Colts for cornerback Rock Ya-Sin. He wound up notching 27 pressures, 16 QB hits, and 9.5 sacks with the Colts this past season and as of the time of this post being written, he’s still looking for a team for the 2023 season.
The fact that Ngakoue is still searching for a team is rather staggering. Stats can be misleading, but pass rush productivity has never been an issue for Ngakoue, who obviously started off his NFL career white hot with the Jaguars. Over time, however, he’s proven to be consistent. Ngakoue has 65 career sacks in the NFL, which is tied with Chris Jones for the 20th most among active NFL players. Ngakoue and Jones both came into the league in 2016, and Jones is considered one of the most dominant forces in football.
Ngakoue has more sacks than his 2016 classmate Joey Bosa. He averages 10 sacks per 17 games along with 21 QB hits per 17 games.
The Jaguars may have gotten the “best” out of Ngakoue with a Pro Bowl season in 2017, but pass rushers don’t grow on trees and this is a guy who could help a lot of NFL teams.