JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars have never spent money like this. Not on draft picks anyway.
Owner Shad Khan committed nearly half a billion, including $272.8 million guaranteed, to home-grown players Josh Hines-Allen, Trevor Lawrence and Tyson Campbell over the past four months. It’s the most expensive stretch of roster building in franchise history.
And it surely raises the bar for this season - and the coming years.
“It shows the belief that he has in us,” Lawrence said Wednesday as the team opened training camp. “He talked to us as a team the other night. I won’t go into everything he said, but the expectations are high and they should be around here, especially when he’s putting his money, his time, all these things, behind it and backing it and really putting a lot into it.
“We expect to win, and the time’s now. We’ve kind of been lingering around a little bit the last couple of years, but this is our opportunity. And we need to take advantage of it.”
The Jaguars are coming off the worst late-season collapse in franchise history. They dropped five of their final six games and missed the postseason after spending three months atop the AFC South. Injuries to quarterback Lawrence, receiver Christian Kirk, cornerback Campbell and left tackle Cam Robinson were partly to blame.
Coach Doug Pederson pointed the finger at his defense, which allowed 29.2 points and 146.8 yards rushing a game in the team’s five losses down the stretch. Pederson fired coordinator Mike Caldwell and seven defensive assistants a day after the season ended.
Pederson hired defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen to revamp the unit, and then general manager Trent Baalke locked up two cornerstones on that side of the ball. He gave pass rusher Hines-Allen a five-year, $141.25 million contract that includes $76.5 million guaranteed. Campbell signed a four-year, $76.5 million extension on the eve of camp Tuesday that includes $54.3 million guaranteed.
“We’re trying to build a standard around here to be an organization that plays in late January, in February,” Campbell said. “So we’re setting the standard and building a winning culture around here.”
Lawrence signed a five-year, $275 million extension in June that included $142 million guaranteed, making him one of the highest-paid players in league history. It was another huge financial commitment from Khan, who is on the hook for roughly half of a $1.4 billion stadium renovation that is pending NFL approval in October.
But Khan, who has two playoff appearances in a dozen seasons, is hoping for a better return on his investment while finally building through the draft.
Before this year, Jacksonville had given second contracts to two first-round draft picks - quarterback Blake Bortles and defensive lineman Tyson Alualu - selected since 2007. Instead, Khan doled out more than $700 million guaranteed to free agents over the past decade, many of those guys signed to fill holes created by draft failures.
“Bottom line is that young talent has to be developed,” Khan said last month. “I mean, their priorities have to change. The mindset has to change. That’s where we’re going to get our future players and we cannot have this addiction to free agents.”
It was a clear mandate for Baalke and Pederson moving forward. And signing Lawrence, Hines-Allen and Campbell to long-term deals should be considered progress.
“The domino effect is how it can uplift your team,” Pederson said. “I think it shows a commitment from the organization that the guys that have been drafted here can be here long term. I think that’s a great message for a lot of the young players that we draft and potentially undrafted guys.
“They’re big-money guys, right? And each one of ’em deserves what they got. And it’s because of their play on the field. I think it sends a great message to the rest of the team that if you do things right both on and off the field you could be rewarded for it.”
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