JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – As the Jaguars prepare for the 2017 NFL Draft, we look back on the best players the Jaguars have drafted at each position.
News4Jax sports director Sam Kouvaris joined Cole Pepper to winnow down the candidates for the all-time Jaguars draft team.
Recommended Videos
They provided a brief explanation for their selections, but this, of course, is a subjective process, so let us know what you think they got right or wrong in the comments section below.
| OFFENSE |
|---|
Quarterback: David Garrard (4th round, 2002 draft)
Mark Brunell wasn’t drafted by the Jaguars so the competition comes down to Garrard, Byron Leftwich and Blake Bortles.
While Leftwich led the Jaguars to the playoffs in 2005, Garrard did the same, and the Jaguars won a playoff game in Pittsburgh with Garrard at the helm.
Add to that the fact that Garrard was a fourth-round pick and produced tremendous value, and that makes the former East Carolina star the pick.
Bortles still has a chance to improve his standing, but he’ll have to improve his play dramatically this season to continue his Jaguars career.
Running backs: Fred Taylor (1st round, 1998); Maurice Jones-Drew (2nd round, 2006)
These were easy choices. Taylor (left) and Jones-Drew (right) are the two best running backs in Jaguars history.
Taylor was the ninth overall pick and ran for over 11,000 yards in his NFL career.
Jones-Drew is the only Jaguars player to lead the league in rushing yards.
If you prefer to have a fullback, Greg Jones is the obvious pick. The second round selection from 2004 was one of the league’s best blocking backs in his career in Jacksonville.
Wide receivers: Allen Robinson (2nd round, 2014); Ernest Wilford (4th round, 2004)
The Jaguars have infamously struggled drafting wide receivers.
The names of misses is long and illustrious: Justin Blackmon, Reggie Wiliams, Matt Jones, R. Jay Soward, Ace Sanders, Chad Owens and more.
The best receivers in Jaguars history were free agent pickups: Jimmy Smith and Keenan McCardell.
As for the draft picks, Robinson (left) had a down year in 2016, but remains one of the top pass catchers in Jaguars history.
Wilford (right) was a workmanlike receiver who caught 15 touchdown passes in his Jaguars career. He is now a Jacksonville Sheriff’s Officer.
Offensive tackles: Tony Boselli (1st round, 1995); Maurice Williams (2nd round, 2001)
There isn’t an easier pick on this team than Boselli (left). When the best player in franchise history was also the first draft pick in the history of the team, it makes an easy choice.
The Jaguars have drafted other left tackles through the years (Eugene Monroe, Mike Pearson, Khalif Barnes, Luke Joeckel, all in the first two rounds), but none have come close to filling Boselli’s large shoes.
At right tackle, Maurice Williams (right) played 105 games for the Jaguars, starting 100. While he never made a Pro Bowl, he was a very solid performer during his nine year career.
Offensive guards: Vince Manuwai (3rd round, 2003); Brandon Linder (3rd round, 2014)
Manuwai (left) is exactly the kind of guard that the Jaguars could use right now.
In eight seasons, the powerful Hawaiian started 105 of 111 games, only missing substantial time in 2008.
Manuwai was a powerful force in the running game and worked well with multiple tackles and centers who played beside him.
Linder (right), although he played center this in 2016, was drafted as a guard and enjoyed his best play at that position.
Uche Nwaneri, a 2007 fifth round pick, was also a nominee.
Center: Brad Meester (2nd round, 2000)
Nobody has played more games in a Jaguars uniform than Meester.
His first three years, Meester played left guard, but it was only a matter of time before he moved to his natural position at center.
Meester started all 209 games in which he played, only missing games in three of his 14 professional seasons.
He memorably capped off his final home game with his only career reception.
Tight end: Marcedes Lewis (1st round, 2006)
The Jaguars have drafted six tight ends in their history.
Other than Lewis, none of them were selected in the first three rounds.
Fifth-round pick Damon Jones caught 11 touchdown passes in his five seasons, while sixth-round pick Zach Miller caught four touchdowns in three years with the Jaguars and has caught nine touchdowns with the Bears over the past two years.
| DEFENSE |
|---|
Defensive ends: Tony Brackens (2nd round, 1996); Renaldo Wynn (1st round, 1997)
Tony Brackens (left) is the Jaguars all-time leader in sacks, and it isn’t close.
Brackens totaled 55 sacks in his eight-year career. The next man on the list, Joel Smeenge, finished his career with 34 sacks.
No defensive player was more disruptive in a Jaguars uniform than Brackens.
The choice for the other defensive end wasn’t as clear cut. We settled on Wynn (right), who was solid if not spectacular in his career.
Other candidates include a pair of seventh-round picks, Rob Meier and Bobby McCray. Yannick Ngakoue, a 2016 third-round pick, is off to a good start in his career after setting the Jaguars rookie sack record.
Defensive tackles: Marcus Stroud (1st round, 2001); John Henderson (1st round, 2002)
Picked in the first round in back-to-back drafts, Stroud (left) and Henderson (right) are inexorably linked in Jaguars history.
Playing together, the duo comprised the foundation of the Jaguars' defense for nearly a decade.
Stroud’s 22 sacks and Henderson’s 29 sacks in a Jaguars uniform only tell part of the story.
In eight seasons together, the duo helped lead the Jaguars to rank in the top 5 in scoring defense four times.
Linebackers: Kevin Hardy (1st round, 1996); Daryl Smith (2nd round, 2004); Telvin Smith (5th round, 2014)
Sometimes the draft choice you pass up is the best decision.
In 1996, the Jaguars strongly considered selecting Nebraska’s troubled running back Lawrence Phillips.
Instead, Tom Coughlin woke up on draft day and chose Hardy (left), who made the Pro Bowl in 1999.
He finished his career with the Cowboys and Bengals, but his best years were in a Jaguars uniform.
Daryl Smith (top right) was the model of consistency after being drafted out of Georgia Tech. For nine years, he piled up 537 tackles, a Jaguars record that stood until 2016 when Paul Posluszny broke it.
Smith was let go after the 2012 season. He spent the next four years in Baltimore and then 2016 with Tampa Bay.
Telvin Smith (bottom right) wins the award for the best value out of a drafted Jaguars linebacker. The fifth-round pick out of Florida State hasn’t made a Pro Bowl, but seems destined to do so at some point in his career.
Cornerbacks: Rashean Mathis (2nd round, 2003); Jalen Ramsey (1st round, 2016)
Mathis (left) is the ultimate local star. The Sandalwood High School alum and former Bethune-Cookman star is the Jaguars all-time leader with 30 interceptions, twice that of any other player.
Ramsey (right) may, one day, break that record.
There are other drafted Jaguars cornerbacks with long careers who merit consideration, like Aaron Beasley and Fernando Bryant, but Ramsey’s rookie season is as impressive as any Jaguars defender in history.
Safeties: Donovin Darius (1st round, 1998); Reggie Nelson (1st round, 2007)
Darius, who was the second of two first-round picks in 1998 (Taylor was the first) can claim the title of most physical defensive back in club history.
When he was drafted, then-Jaguars defensive coordinator Dick Jauron said that Darius (left) would “bring violence” to the defense. He did.
Although he totaled 14 interceptions in nine seasons in Jacksonville, it was his physical presence that helped him stand apart.
The best years for Nelson (right) have come after he departed Jacksonville, but he’s the best of a rather thin group of options at safety that includes Jonathan Cyprien, Chris Hudson, Gerald Sensabaugh, Josh Evans and Marlon McCree. McCree is probably the next best choice of the group.
| SPECIAL TEAMS |
|---|
Kicker: Josh Scobee (5th round, 2004)
Hmm…the Jaguars have drafted two kickers in their history: Scobee and Hayden Eptstein.
This was an easy one.
Scobee, the Jaguars' all-time leading scorer, is the pick.
Punter: Adam Podlesh (4th round, 2007)
The Jaguars have drafted three punters in their history.
Forgotten fifth-round pick David Leaverton never played a game with the team, and Bryan Anger was perhaps the most ridiculed third-round pick in club history.
Podlesh averaged over 42 yards per punt in four years with the Jaguars.
Returner: Reggie Barlow (4th round, 1996)
Barlow is the best return man in Jaguars history (if you leave out Maurice Jones-Drew, who held the role only part-time).
Barlow returned a kickoff for a touchdown in 1997 and scored on punt returns in 1998 and 1999.
He led the league in punt return yards in 1998.
Editor's Note: Photos in story from the Jacksonville Jaguars, Associated Press and Getty images.