After James Gladstone was hired as the Jaguars’ General Manager earlier this year, he said he saw a lot of similarities between where the Jags are now and where the Rams were when he joined them in 2016.
The Rams were in bad shape at that point, but they turned things around after hiring Sean McVay as their head coach and Gladstone has implemented one of the Rams’ ways of doing business as he and head coach Liam Coen try to do the same thing in Jacksonville. The Jaguars did not hold any pre-draft visits with prospects at their headquarters this offseason, which is something the Rams have passed on doing in recent years as well.
Gladstone said at a Tuesday press conference that there are “layers” to that approach, including a desire to avoid “implicit bias” based on when you speak to a prospect and a desire to shroud any intentions about which players are on your radar. Gladstone also said that he thinks there’s more value to the long-term insights of scouts who have followed players for years because he doesn’t have a “superpower” that will give the team a deeper understanding after a short, in-person meeting.
“There are other mechanisms that we tend to lean into to help us determine whether or not a player is, in fact, a fit for us more than just a singular touch point that would be a top 30 visit,” Gladstone said.
The Rams have drafted well enough to be a perennial playoff team in recent years and following in those footsteps would be a good way for the Jags to right a ship that’s been taking on water for the last couple of seasons.
