FULL: Jacksonville Jaguars GM James Gladstone SHUTS DOWN Brian Thomas Jr. Rumors and Draft Buzz

0:00Hey everyone, this is Ross Jackson, one of the hosts of The Lockdown Podcast Network. If your group chat has been a little quiet lately, I want to invite you to come and join ours. If you sign up for the Every Day or Club, you get access to the members' only group chats for your favorite teams, plus national chats for every sport, personally I love watching folks talk a little smack in the NFC South Trash Talk Chat. You also get an ad-free version of your favorite locked on show and a whole lot more. You can check it out by tapping the Every Day or Club link in the show notes. Jacksonville Jaguars GM James Gladstone spoke about a quiet free agency period for the home team here in DuValland, we'll tell you exactly what he said in just a second. You are locked on Jaguars, your daily Jacksonville Jaguars podcast, part of The Lockdown Podcast

1:05Network, your team every day. It is your team every day here on Lockdown Jaguars. We thank you for making us your first listener, I am Tony Wiggins the host of The Lockdown Jaguars Podcast that can be found right here, whether you watch or listen, wherever you get your podcasts and we are the number one sports podcast network. Always glad to have you here and join us today's episodes brought to you by Fandool. Fandool is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with the college basketball parlay profit boost head to fandool.com to get started. All right, let's get right into it. We've got two halves of this bonus edition. We're going to talk about no need for a no need for a pick up in the draft, no pressure, and then the flexibility is key with comp picks. James Gladstone spoke to the Jaguars media today and he echoed some things that really sort of have been things that I have been talking about on the Lockdown Jaguars podcast.

2:11First of all, the Jaguars, their refrigerator is full. You've heard that several times when I have talked about recently about how they would go about getting talented on this team, they're not just going to go out and get people and swap out picks, just to swap out picks. If a player is not as good as Eric Armstead or a player is not as good as Mason Smith, they're not just going to go and get somebody new just because it's somebody different. No, they owe those other guys dead money. It just does not work that way. Also, something else that you heard him talk about was Brian Thomas Jr. Absolutely zero truth to any rumor that they were ever in any series talks about Brian Thomas Jr. They were answering the phone or somebody calls, but I likened it the other day to saying, look, if somebody calls me, people have been calling me about my house. I don't have a Fusell sign in the yard, but people call me and make me offers all the time. It's not the same thing as saying that you're trying to shop a player.

3:12The other thing is they were never seriously involved with Max Crosby. Those discussions never really seriously involved with any of that. We didn't hear him address the Tray Hendrix and rumors or the Jalen Carter rumors, but as he said, this free agency signing period just started 24 hours ago. People act like it started three days ago. It did not. That was the tampering period just because they haven't done anything. It's not indicative of the fact that they won't do anything, but he shot down a lot of rumors and he also substantiated the fact that they believe in player development, right? He mentioned Jack Kaiser. He mentioned those players. He mentioned Dennis Gardek being able to play that freaky Sam role that sometimes he's the past rusher, sometimes he's encouraged. He talked about the fact that, yeah, they have these corners and they have safety and they're going to approach the draft, really looking for best player available. They believe the Jaguars, it sounds like James Glaston is saying the Jaguars believe

4:14they can line up right now and play the way that they want to play. So when it comes to who they're going to pick, of course, outside of quarterback and probably running back, they are going to draft the highest ranked player on their board. And it's not necessarily a thought that they actually believe or think that. And then it doesn't sound like they're not leaving it open, but it sounds like they're not saying that they need to draft somebody at 56 that is going to start for the Jacksonville Jaguars because quite frankly, there isn't one position where a guy picked at 56 in this particular draft is going to start for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Other than the fact that they're going to leave it open for, let's see what happens in training camp. And the Jaguars will do that under this regime. They will wait and see what happens in training camp to determine what is going to play out with these draft picks.

5:15But the thing is, you got to earn it. They believe they can line up right now with the team that they have. And I don't disagree with them. We'll discuss the flexibility that they get from comp picks and not actually going out and signing people in this year's draft. We'll do that. I mean, in this round of free ages, we'll do that in just a second here, a lot to enjoy. All right. Today's show, sponsored and brought to you by Fandoo. Man, I've been looking at college basketball all last night. It's non-stop big games, tight spreads, momentum swings every single night. From early tip-offs to late West Coast shootouts, there's always action on the board. Now Fandoo is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with the college basketball parlay profit boost. You can build any college who's parlayed you want, rivalry, games, rank matchups, whatever. Fits. My read. That's right. You can mix spreads, totals, and player props to match how you see the slate being played

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7:21Your turbo tax expert works to get. You, every dollar you deserve, wow, you get real time notifications as you go about your day. It's the relief of walking in and meeting a real person and walking out knowing the taxes are being handled right. Hit the TurboTax.com slash local to find a store near you and book your appointment today. Jaguars GM James Gladstone spoke to the media virtually and you can find that on Jaguars.com at some point. But we're just giving you the gist of it right now as it pertains to some of the things that we've been talking about on Lockdown Jaguars. Now I'm going to go back to something I said about four years ago. And something I said about four years ago was never discount loose change. You know, like, you know, you go to grocery store, people try to offer you six or seven. It's like 294, you give them three dollars, you tell them to keep the six cents. I ain't talking about that loose change. The loose change I'm talking about is when something is $1.33, you give them two bucks

8:24and they give you 67 cents back. Well, that's 67 cents usually goes into some sort of pickle jar or your astray or whatever. And eventually you look down there, there's five, six dollars. And that's what you'll need if you're going through a toll or whatever. And the Jaguars, he pointed out how they use loose change as a part of the deal to get Jacobi Myers. And that's why these comp picks matter. He pointed out how getting loose change allowed them to move up in the draft to get other players that ended up being contributors to this team. So don't discount the fact that because they're not doing anything, that the loose change that they're getting doesn't mean anything. The 2027 comp picks could also allow them to say, okay, they can't trade those yet because they haven't been designated, I don't believe, but they can trade their regular picks and even move up this year and this year's draft, they can put something together in 2027 based on the fact that they know they have all of that extra stuff. And I don't think people and fans realize how much that stuff means because when a GM

9:30believes in themselves and they believe that they can use those picks to turn them into tangible players based on skin, based on alignment, which those are words that he mentioned that I talk about all the time I'm locked on Jaguars, the fact that GMs believe that they can do that, you have to understand the value that they have, especially during this period, they're giving away a boatload of money to prove in players to supplement that to make sure that your team can function properly. You need to make sure that you have enough picks to hit on late picks that you're getting contribution from guys who aren't making a whole bunch of money. That's why those picks are so valuable, especially to the 32 GMs and the scouts that believe that they know exactly who can be good and they know the guy and they have all of the information. It's not luck like a lot of people on Twitter like to think or people that do mock drafts that don't actually have to make these picks work for them in order to keep their job. It's going to be more to discuss based on what I've heard today.

10:32I don't think they're going to be that much more active. I was actually going, if I would have had the opportunity to ask him about the past rush position, or the past rush situation that they notably said that they wanted to address, but they have not done that and if this draft is going to be sufficient or if they need to go into the veteran market. I think what you're basically going to see is they're going to next year with the guys that they have. They'll add one or two guys in the draft depending on how it falls, but pretty much what you see from these Jacksonville Jaguars is what you're going to get. Adding the draft choices and those contributions that those guys have. Don't fret though because the guys in development might have a whole bunch to say about it. We'll have a bunch more to say about this and anything else that happens with the Jacksonville Jaguars this weekend during this period of free agency as we approach the NFL draft. We appreciate you. Make sure you check out the Everydayers Club down in the description to become a bigger

11:33part of this network for as literally as $5. We'll see you next time here on Lockdown Jack.