Will Jaguars Become the AFC Version of Rams?

Retools, rebuilds, and total tear downs: they are all different ways NFL franchises construct their roster following down years or a stretch of years where the ultimate goal of success at the highest of levels was not achieved. Coaches are fired, and complete front office structures are torn down.

Rebuilds have worked in recent years, just ask the Detroit Lions, who have now emerged as Super Bowl contenders. Total teardowns can get you the Houston Texans, who went from worst to first in the AFC South just a couple of years ago.

The best example of a retooling franchise in the NFL has been the Los Angeles Rams, who retooled by not just adding more free agents to the roster but by working through the draft. It has led them to have one of the youngest rosters in the league, a great young defensive front, and a team ready to emerge as a championship contender in 2025.

This is where the Jacksonville Jaguars could come in. They seem to be L.A. Rams-coded: the top structure of the football operations featuring a former Rams front office executive in James Gladstone, and a head coach who was once the offensive coordinator in Los Angeles while implementing McVay-Shanahan principles to an already creative run game and offense in Liam Coen.

Jacksonville isn't your typical team coming off a 4-13 season. They have talent on both sides of the ball, but the roster has felt top-heavy in some areas. This feels exactly like how the Rams were perceived before the 2023 season, where they made the postseason as a wildcard team.

Gladstone addressed the lack of depth in the offseason across the board. He and Coen want their players to be asked to do things outside of their comfort zone, which resulted in the selection of eight of their nine rookies from the Senior Bowl. They also added- traded up for- a blue-chip, generational prospect in two-way Colorado standout Travis Hunter.

All of these moves make me believe the Jaguars can become the AFC's version of the Rams.

Now, the biggest difference between the two franchises is that the Rams already had an established coach and general manager in Sean McVay and Les Snead, and they were coming off their first Super Bowl victory since the turn of the millennium. The Jaguars are coming off a four-win season and two straight nine-win campaigns before that, seemingly reaching the floor of what their roster could become.

The goal this season for Jacksonville is to raise the ceiling (or the roof, I'm not sure what Michael Jordan exactly meant there, seven years later) of a roster that has the talent and football operations committed to wanting better play from the organization as a whole.

The great thing about Jacksonville is that they are young with a nice mixture of veteran talents at key positions, just like Los Angeles. Both have adequate passers, playcallers, great playmakers at wide receiver, and young defenders on defense with mixtures of experienced skill players.

This feels like a recipe for success with the Jaguars. Fans of this franchise have been waiting since the late 1990s and early 2000s for their team to be serious contenders in the AFC, a conference that has yet to slay the dragon more than once, that is, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. The time for success, wins (and lots of them) is now.

Will it happen? That is a conversation for another day, and we'll have a better look at this team during training camp. Until then, the recipe for immediate success is there for the Jaguars, just look to the west coast in southern California to McVay, Snead, & Co.

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