JACKSONVILLE – The Jaguars stayed offense-centric Friday.
That has been the Jaguars’ theme for the first two days of the 2023 NFL Draft. But that wasn’t the intent as much as how the first three rounds played out.
And as General Manager Trent Baalke sees it, that’s absolutely OK.
“We’ve stayed true to the board and feel really good about the value we got,” Baalke said late Friday following Day 2 of the 2023 draft. “We came out of this day with two really good football players.”
The Jaguars, after selecting University of Oklahoma offensive tackle Anton Harrison No. 27 overall Thursday, began Friday by trading down. They then tried unsuccessfully to use their growing late-round draft equity to trade back into Round 3.
They finished the night with two more offensive selections – two skill players who will join an offense that ranked No. 10 in the NFL in scoring and yards in 2022:
- Round 2, No. 61 overall: Brenton Strange, tight end, Penn State. The Jaguars traded out of the No. 56 overall selection with the Chicago Bears for this selection, also adding the No. 136 overall selection – the first selection of Round 5.
- Round 3, No. 88 overall: Tank Bigsby, running back, Auburn. This was the Jaguars’ lone Round 3 selection entering the draft, and marked the first selection of the draft that the Jaguars did not acquire after trading back. They traded back twice Thursday before selecting Harrison.
“We got two really good football players, key positions that add a lot of depth and versatility to what we want to do offensively,” Baalke said, with Jaguars Head Coach Doug Pederson adding: “It’s just kind of the way that the board fell to us the last two days.”
Strange (6-feet-3 7/8, 253 pounds), who played four seasons at Penn State, caught 70 passes for 755 yards and 11 touchdowns in his college career. He caught 32 passes for 365 yards and five touchdowns in 2022. Strange was a third-team All-Big Ten selection as a senior, starting 26 games over the last two seasons.
Pederson…
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