Jacksonville Jaguars: Taking RB Travis Etienne at pick 25 was questionable move

The Jacksonville Jaguars took running back Travis Etienne with the 25th overall pick. Here’s why that may not have been the right move.

It’s hard to find fault in what the Jacksonville Jaguars have done since the end of the 2020 season. After bringing in new management with legendary college coach, Urban Meyer, the team grabbed their quarterback of the future with the first overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

Former Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence has the makings to be a star in the NFL, and with incredible poise and a great all-around skillset, his NFL ceiling is very high. If all goes well, he will be the Jaguars quarterback for the next fifteen years.

It’s for this reason that taking running back Travis Etienne with the 25th overall pick was very interesting. Etienne was a great compliment to Lawrence during their time at Clemson, and perhaps the number one overall pick had a hand in getting him drafted. However, one has to wonder: did the Jaguars make the wrong decision taking Etienne at pick 25?

Did Jacksonville Jaguars make the right move with Etienne?

I’ll be honest: I liked Travis Etienne a lot. I had him graded out slightly over Najee Harris this year due to his homerun speed and explosive play rate. However, I don’t necessarily agree that this was the right move for this particular team – at least not in the first round.

After landing a franchise quarterback, most teams believe it is very important to build a great offensive line around them. The New York Jets and Chicago Bears both put this into practice after drafting their franchise quarterback early in the draft this year. The Jets moved back up in the draft to land Alijah Vera-Tucker to block for Zach Wilson, and the Bears did the same to secure Teven Jenkins.

Jacksonville has spent a ton of resources on their offensive line in recent years. The interior with Brandon Linder, A.J. Cann, and Andrew Norwell was actually quite impressive in 2020, and they have spent two second-round picks on offensive tackles, Cam Robinson and Jawaan Taylor.

However, the tackles didn’t play as well as the interior offensive line last season, and Cam Robinson is set to be a free agent after the 2021 season. While the team did use a second-round pick on the injury-prone Stanford offensive tackle, Walker Little, he is one of the biggest boom-or-bust players in the draft. Teven Jenkins and Liam Eichenberg are some options they could have explored with this pick.

If the Jaguars felt like they didn’t need to address the offensive line so early, they could have looked at a different position to help Trevor Lawrence – one that could perhaps offer up a much longer NFL career. Laviska Shenault and DJ Chark both have the makings to be very good NFL receivers. The team also brought in ten-year veteran, Marvin Jones, but they could have used another young option in the passing game. Elijah Moore and Rashad Batemen could have made sense.

In addition to this, 2020 rookie James Robinson was more than impressive as he took on Leonard Fournette’s old role as the starting running back. Robinson ran for over 1,000 yards and recorded 7 touchdowns in his rookie season, and he would have been more than competent as the team’s running back moving forward.

Travis Etienne is an explosive running back who brings speed and outside running ability to the table that most backs don’t possess. However, I’m not a big fan of taking running backs in the first round because of the value of the position. I wasn’t surprised to see Jacksonville go this direction with the 25th overall pick, but I think it was a questionable decision.