The league began their front office press conferences Wednesday at the NFL combine and will wrap the remainder of them up Thursday. That means it’s about time for the 2019 prospects to take the field for performance drills, which without a question is the most anticipated part of the process.
Before we get to see what the upcoming draft has to offer, howerve, our comrade of Draft Wire, Luke Easterling, decided to put together one last mock draft for February, which as always, turned out to be rather interesting.
Sticking with the same pick he gave the Jags in he previous draft, Easterling slotted the Jags their quarterback of the future in Dwayne Haskins.
4. Jacksonville Jaguars (from OAK)* | Dwayne Haskins | QB | Ohio State
The Blake Bortles experiment is over, and the Jags desperately need to make a bold move to secure a new franchise quarterback. They’re likely to find a willing trade partner in the Raiders, who keep adding premium picks by getting at least a second-round pick and a third-round pick from Jacksonville in this deal.
Simply put, there isn’t much we haven’t said about Haskins who has been heavily tied to the Jags due to them being on the quarterback market. With a 70 percent completion ratio, he’d give the Jags a player who is the polar opposite of Blake Bortles, who struggled mightily with accuracy throughout his career. Unfortunately, it took their second and third round selections to land him in Draft Wire’s mock, but Haskins is a player who could get them to the postseason with and elite defense beside him.
To wrap up the mock draft, Easterling gave the Jags offensive tackle Tytus Howard and Ole Miss receiver DeMarkus Lodge in the third and fourth rounds.
Howard, 6-foot-5, 322-pounds, was a player many saw firsthand at the Senior Bowl last month, and for the most part, he impressed. The Athletic’s Dane Brugler went as far to praise his agility by saying he had the footwork to play tackle, while Draft Analysts’ Tony Pauline called him ‘good as advertised’ being that he held his own against notable defensive linemen like Montez Sweat, Oshane Ximines and Carl Granderson in Mobile. He’d be the perfect replacement for current right tackle Jermey Parnell, who the Jags may part ways with to free up some cap space.
As for Lodge (6-foot-1, 200 pounds), he’s a player with the upside to evolve into a solid receiver and would fill a need for Jacksonville, however, his hands are questionable at times. For that reason, I think Easterling would’ve been better to slot the Jags Ohio State’s Terry McLaurin, who balled out at the Senior Bowl and has a bond with Haskins.
