Arik Armstead May Be A HUGE Part Of The Jacksonville Jaguars Plans In 2026 Despite Some Speculation

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Interior defensive line has been all of the talk of the offseason.

The jaguars have done absolutely nothing to address it.

I'll tell you why that might happen or why that might be here unlocked on Jaguar.

You are locked on Jaguar.

Your daily Jacksonville Jaguars podcast.

Part of the locked on podcast network.

Your team every day.

I'm Tony Wiggins, the host of the locked on Jaguar's podcast.

And here's what today's show is going to be all about at the show.

At the end of the show, we'll talk about the possibility of a committee at three

technique defensive tackle in the middle.

Why we might all be wrong about Eric Armstrong's dead and at the very top

where we're going to start with the jacks.

What do the jacks think about the three techniques?

It's not a question.

It's a statement.

Here's what the jacks think about the three technique.

Because the evidence of what they think.

They're not going to tell you what they think and what they do.

I've always said follow the money, right?

You could also follow inactivity.

What they what they do or what they don't do can speak to you.

All of the top, including right here on this podcast,

don't lock down Jaguars each and every day.

I have discussed the interior.

Here's why I've done that.

The Jaguars have said that an area of improvement is past rush.

Josh Allen is the second highest paid player on the team.

Are they saying that Josh Allen needs to improve?

Yeah, I would say that they need that they're saying that.

I think Josh Allen will tell you he needs to improve.

But he's here, right?

He's one of the five best players in their committed tournament.

The Jaguars also just gave Trayvon Walker

a contract extension at four years,

$115 million or $110 million.

So that's five years, $125 million,

with $92 million guaranteed over the next four years.

That says that they believe in him

and they've talked about them believing in him at nausea.

So the, but he also can improve.

And he's gonna be healthy.

He's gonna be back this year

and they look for a double digit season for him.

The interior, Devon Hamilton is one of the better

nose tackles in the NFL.

I'm telling you, he's top five.

I know everybody wants to talk about Dexter Lawrence,

but I promise you, if you watched the take from last year,

just in 2025, you would say that Devon Hamilton

had a better season in Dexter Lawrence.

And they were about the same age.

One guy has a couple of all pros.

The other guy doesn't.

The other guy Devon Hamilton also took about a year

and a half off for an illness, not really off,

but he battled it.

And now he's back playing at full strength.

He looks pretty dang, dang on good to us, right?

But maybe the name Dexter Lawrence rings out.

Eric Armstead was banged up, made a lot of money.

Has made a lot of money, like a boat load of money.

And he has a dead cap hit to this team

that if they cut him before, if they cut Eric Armstead

prior to June 1st, catastrophic to the salary cap.

If they cut him after the sale, after that,

yeah, they say $14 million in salary cap.

Cut him before they only save $2 million.

The thing is if you cut him though,

what are you replacing him with at this point?

At this point where we are now,

what are you replacing?

Who's gonna be better than a dude you've already given

the money to, which is sunk in cost?

Even if you save the cap space after June 1st,

well, June 1st, you're getting ready for training camp.

So what are you gonna do with that cap space?

I mean, Parker Washington and Antonio Johnson

are already on the contract this year

with a very small cap hit.

What are you trying to save?

What are you absorbing?

What are you trying to save that cap space for to absorb?

Absorb what?

Who are you gonna go get after June?

Who's out there, you're gonna trade for somebody?

And so you gotta make that happen.

So you have the cap space to trade for them.

Okay, so who you trading for after June 1st at that position?

Tell me the guy around the league,

where's the three technique that this team is going to get?

So I looked at this and I said, you know what?

I wonder if you really ask coaches.

Would you rather be very good at stopping the run?

Well, very good at getting after the quarterback.

I know fans will say getting after quarterback.

Maybe a pass rust coach would say getting after the quarterback.

But if it meant sacrificing that ability to stop the run,

I would venture to say 65 to 70% of the coaches

and any coaches out there can tell me there's any defense

of coaches, not offense of coaches.

Because offense of coaches, they're gonna say,

man, we don't want our quarterback harassed, right?

Defensive mind of coaches will tell you,

they want to stop that run.

They don't want to die that slow death

with people just getting three and a half four yards

of carry and control at the clock.

Because those three and a half four yards per carry,

they turn into other stuff.

Let me tell you what it turns into.

It turns into having to put people up in the box

and then get beat on a one on one route down the field.

Having to put extra people in the box

and then every routine play where a running back gets

to the second level and there's nobody there

because you got eight, nine people in the box

in the field are spread wide open.

So now you're leaving yourself wide open for a big play.

And then this is the worst one.

It might not sound like it to a lot of people,

but this is the worst possible scenario.

You stick all those people in the box

and you still can't stop the run.

You want to talk about a hot game in that stadium

in September or October when your team gets pounded into

the ground, 80, 90 yards, 15, 16 plays.

You want me to remind you, go back to that game

against the 49ers in 2023.

Yeah, that one.

That game, you know what I'm talking about.

The 49ers got the ball at the beginning of the game

and this is the game, by the way,

that snatched the veil off of the Jaguars,

what we thought was success and showed you that

we weren't who we thought we were.

I came on the air right after that game is seen,

we got a problem.

We have a problem.

It's almost like watching a boxer and he gets hurt.

And then you watch it again and he gets hurt by the same punch

and you're like, okay, we got an issue.

And once everybody knows they, it's like blood in the water, right?

The 49ers got the ball, they got the opening kickoff.

The Jaguars got the ball back with less than two minutes to go

in the first quarter.

I think the 49ers only got three.

I might be wrong, they could have gotten seven,

but it doesn't matter, man.

They ate up 13 minutes and some change off of the clock.

The Jaguars were demoralized.

You know how demoralized they were?

Because the 49ers got the ball back and proceeded to start

to do the same thing again.

And then you had somebody on the Jaguars commit a personal foul

because they were frustrated.

And I know the defensive coach at the time, Ryan Nielsen

was probably like, yeah, I'll to hit him too.

I'll to hit him too.

As a matter of fact, next time you go out there here's a back.

Take this with you and hit him with that

because there's nothing we can do.

It's demoralizing.

So while we look at this as a huge huge problem,

I think the Jaguars are looking at it like a dog, man.

Hold on, chill out with all of that.

I'm gonna take you through a quick exercise.

Anthony Campanila came from Green Bay.

Green Bay's defense last year under Jeff Hathley,

ran a 3-4.

Before that, Anthony Campanila was with Vic Fangio and Miami.

They ran a 3-4.

So you can't really use the teams and Liam coached

for Tampa and L.A. 3-4.

You can't really look at these teams and go,

well, this is what they should do or they spend a lot of money.

Aaron Donnell, yeah, they spend a lot of money on Aaron Donnell

and in Vita Vaya, they spend a lot of money

on Vita Vaya down there in Tampa.

You know why?

Because they're great players.

But it seems like to me that the interior is more of a

committee approach when it comes outside of Donnell

and outside of Vaya.

It's a committee approach with those teams

that these coaches come from, even in Green Bay.

Green Bay has Devante Wyatt,

who is really a 3-technique, listed as a nose,

Javon Hargrave, who's really a 3-technique.

He's listed as a defensive end.

He's gonna start for them this year and Carl Brooks

is listed as a defensive end also.

Most of y'all probably don't even know who Carl Brooks is,

but he's 6'3, 296.

So they basically got three dudes that are in a lot

of people's minds considered 3-techniques.

Let me go to the Rams and show you how this is done.

I don't know the reason I'm doing this

as an exercises because we're trying to figure out

if the Jaguars really are going to prioritize that interior.

I think they prioritize great players.

This is probably why they haven't made a move.

Kobe Turner, 6'2, 297 and he's a defensive end.

We know Brad and Fisk is listed as the other defensive end

and Fisk is about that same size.

6'3, about 292, 295.

In fact, I'll go ahead and bring it up for you.

He might be 300 by now, but I follow him at Florida State.

Yeah, he's 6'5, 291.

Okay.

That's normally a 3-technique or a 4B, 4I, 5-technique outside.

So they're not very big along the line

and they do it.

They work, Poon of Ford is their nose tackle.

Don't get me started.

He's 5'11, 310, all right?

So what I'm telling you is it appears that

we have a problem trying to figure out

how the Jaguars value the 3-technique position

and everybody wants to trade Eric Armstead.

And it doesn't make sense if you don't have a player

to replace it.

I'll tell you why they might like Armstead so much.

I'll get into it in a second here,

I'll lock down Jaguars.

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Let's get back to this defensive tackle,

three technique discussion, trying to figure out

if the inactivity of the Jaguar signals

that they either don't prioritize the interior position

or in signals that they do prioritize great players

and if they don't have a great quote-unquote great player

at that position, they can still function.

There are a lot of teams that do that

to have just good football players

or some sort of rotation of football players

or committee if you will.

I just think they play it fluently by ear

but what they aren't gonna do is cut or trade a player

for a minimum of cap space at this point.

And I know they can make it a designation

of June 1st designation, allow him to go out

and feel offers and say look,

we're gonna move on from Eric Armstrong's there

but they haven't replaced him.

And then there will also be a tell before the draft

that will be a tell of what direction you're going into.

Most of the mock drafts when you look at them,

they list the Jaguars as needing a defensive tackle

or defensive in or running back

an offensive tackle and see that's where we need to park

when we start talking about needs.

Needs for each team differ

and where each team is as it relates to those needs

is different also.

I would say the Jaguarska using an upgraded tackle,

yes, long-term, but we have to remember

Kovan Lan and starts his extension this year

three years, 51 million dollars I believe.

Anton Harrison has already had his fifth year option

picked up this year and he's only going into his fourth season

so he's going to be here two more years

unless they trade him, right?

So when we say that that position is a position of need,

that could be true, but it is also a position

that doesn't really have a vacancy sign hanging up there either.

And the thing about the NFL is different from college is,

you got them there on the contract,

case in point, walk a little, walk a little might be

the highest paid swing tackle in the NFL.

Maybe and the dilemma in all of this is

Eric Armstead, Anton Harrison,

Kovan Lan, walk a little, none of those guys

were people that were acquired by the current administration.

Now, two of them were extended

and that puts them in a different situation

because they have them and they're looking around

they're like, no, we need to keep them.

Not because you don't think you can find anyone better,

but because with no first round pick this year,

they're on doing and that's fine

because they got Travis Hunter and they're happy about it.

With no first round pick this year,

with the three technique position in this particular draft,

not being particularly strong when it comes to,

okay, yeah, we're going to sit here and get rid of it,

we're going to find some guy in the fifth,

I mean in the second, third or fourth round,

that's going to start for us.

It doesn't make sense.

And then it goes back to Mason Smith.

I'm going to tell y'all what somebody told me last year

when I was down at the stadium.

It was actually mini camp, it may have been mini camp.

And so when it works in the building with a whistle,

not a position coach, but they have a whistle.

It's like, wait, man, I saw something in your draft coverage,

man, I don't know why people were saying

we were going to take Mason Graham.

I said, yeah, I don't know why they were saying it either

because jack was don't need Mason Graham.

In fact, I thought they needed a nose tackle last year,

but see, this is how and why the wait and see approach works.

Because I was thinking, okay, Devon Hamilton

has been a year and a half.

He's not really, he hasn't quite gotten back

to where he was tracking to be prior to him getting sick.

So perhaps they can go to that position.

I actually told Tony to be selling that.

You know how do they say it?

He asked me, wait, what do you think we're going to do?

And the formula that I used was,

I just looked where the biggest hole was.

And then I'm going to tell y'all what I said.

It's going to blow your mind.

I said, Tony, I look at it like this.

Draft aside, if you could draft someone

that's already in an NFL to make this team better.

He said, who would it be?

I said, Dexter Lange.

Coming off of a nine-sack season, all pro,

nose tackle, who can also penetrate a little bit.

I would not say that same thing after this season.

And this is where hindsight is 2020,

but it also shows you that your psych

was kind of clouded back then.

Because Devon Hamilton actually played better

than Dexter Lange.

So this is full transparency.

I also said, last year, me right in my face and say,

you got five seconds, who would you draft?

I said, offensive defense, he said both.

I said, I trade down to take Kenneth Grant.

There you go again, wrong again.

That did not happen and Kenneth Grant

did not play well last year.

And Devon Hamilton right now is a better player

than Kenneth Grant.

But I also said on offense, I would take our mom and both.

This is before I knew that they were going to trade

for Travis Hunter.

Obviously, no one did.

But I didn't think they were going to be able to get him.

So this is, if you sit right there, what would you do?

I said, I'm our member.

I take employment right tackle of guard

and move in town over to left.

That's what I said.

And members, a great young player.

But I was wrong in one and I wasn't necessarily wrong

on the other, but this just goes to show you

how things are fluid and things can change.

And this is why you don't make change just for changes sake.

You don't make change from Eric Armstrong's did

just to save two million dollars

that you ain't going to be able to spend on anybody else

that's going to help you any better.

You hope they're healthy.

If somebody down there last year told me,

we don't need a three technique.

They like both of those guys.

One of the reasons they probably was like Eric Armstrong's did

is because the take problems suggested

we need to like him more.

Everybody last year thought that they just needed to move.

This is the thing when I said there's no vacancy sign.

Last year, this time, people were clamoring for two things.

They wanted Mason Graham.

And then they wanted Eric Armstrong's did move back inside.

So you paying this dude all of this money

and you're going to draft his replacement

with a top five pick.

See, these are the things that don't really make sense

to people that have to do this job for real.

It's one thing about drafting best player available.

It's another thing about drafting the best player available

and stacking them up at your position.

I also heard that Brodog would have took Derek Harmon

and stacked the defensive line

because the old address says

you can never have too much past Russian defensive line.

That's true, but if you ain't got

nothing else, it doesn't matter.

So we could see a committee approach by the Jaguars.

I'll get more into this and peel all of this,

meet off the bone in just a second here

I'll lock down Jaguars.

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All right, man, we moving and grooving here

on locked on Jaguar's way to short team every day.

Talking about the three technique position

and why it's so perplexing

and there's a little bit of a dilemma.

Maybe the Jaguar staff doesn't feel like they have

a dilemma. Maybe it's all us.

Maybe it's in our mind because dilemma is not what actually exists,

but it's what we're creating and trying to figure out

because of our assessment of their offseason

and what they should be doing.

I said, hour, not yours, hours,

because I've done the same thing.

I was a giant, I was banging on the table

for John Franklin Myers to come in here

because it's easy to say, okay,

give me the one thing that they need.

Now you gotta pay for it.

You see, you see how it works?

I need me a beach house in Curacao.

I gotta pay for it if I'm not gonna reach

and go into a 401K and all that.

Every action has some sort of debt or consequence

that comes along with it.

And on a football team, generally when you're talking about

that kind of money and using resources over and over again

at the same spot at some point,

it's natural for other things to be neglected.

You're not going to always be able to get

every single thing you want from every position.

So you gotta figure out how you can get

most of what you need and keep trying to get everything

and trying to employ people to be better

and finding diamonds and the rough.

That's what makes all of this hard.

That's why teams don't just sit there and win championships.

You know, like the championships aren't spread around, right?

It is very, very difficult to do this.

It's difficult to get to the Super Bowl.

It's hard to win the Super Bowl.

You gotta have a whole bunch of things

that line up perfectly and that matter.

Now, the Jaguars lately have been paying

a lot of attention to the little things

and that's a good thing, right?

But it still, it depends on how things go, man.

You just gotta go out there and give it your best shot

with development, with player procurement,

with skiing, with your strengths being bigger

than your weaknesses, all of those things.

And last year, it just weren't good enough.

And the fans that want things to get better,

they're only like that because they want to be good enough.

They want to be better, they want to improve, right?

So when the coaching staff says that they need to improve

their past rush, but two of their five best players

are actually edge rushers.

You only come to the conclusion that they're talking about

on, with depth or with guys being able to rush

the past from interior for the most part.

And then that guys outside also having to play

a little bit better.

Stay healthy and play a little bit better.

All of those things, there's improvement for the players

that are on the team right now,

that are starters that make a lot of money

and there's room for other guys to perform as well.

So one way they may be able to do this

is with the committee by approach,

especially at the end, because BJ Green and Danny Strego,

they're gonna put another year's worth of work in.

It doesn't mean that guys,

just because they were late round or undrafted people

and then they came in and were able to play,

that means that they were ready to play.

That means that there was some reason

why they slipped in the draft,

but being ready to play right now wasn't one of them.

It was more a long term.

We know what the word prospect means,

the most likely that something is gonna happen

and everybody's always looking for the next star,

not necessarily the next role player.

It doesn't necessarily mean that those two guys

because they played as rookies are going to take another step.

But what it does give you an idea of is you do have

two guys that are backups that have experience

and you've seen it and you have demonstrated performance

and you know that what they're not gonna do

is make you look terrible.

They're not gonna make you look bad

and in fact, they probably got a real good chance

of making some plays because both of them did.

If these two guys were free agents right now,

if it was possible to be a free agent after one year,

they both would have got nice contracts

on the open market because they outplayed their position

with this team and they came in

and they made a run at it, right?

So you still have to replace guys like Emmanuel Obama.

You still have to replace guys like DeWant Smooth.

Those were two other guys that were in that rotation.

So I think the Jaguars will try to hit it with edge in the draft

but it still has to fall to them

just because that's what you want.

Doesn't mean that that's what's going to be there.

They're also probably depending on how the offseason program

is going right now and depending on

whether Eric Armstrong's dead and Mason Smith

are going to be healthy.

They're gonna go in the training camp obviously

in my opinion with both of those guys as one and two.

Now, this is where I think they do go get someone else

and that someone else might not be a full-time starter.

It might be a land in Robinson.

It might be someone that has a characteristic

that they really, really like and they're not risking

a first, second or possibly even a third round pick.

They could get one of those dudes landing Robinson

or a direct from Penn State, Zane Durant.

They could get a guy like that.

They could get a guy like that later.

Maybe even in the fifth round, maybe two of them

and then you got people that can really, really help you

in those spots.

So it might be a situation where they have a pass rush

by committee.

Durant outside of Jared versus on the outside

of Jared versus didn't get a whole bunch of sacks

that I asked a couple of years.

But he does provide pressure and he does set the edge.

The Rams aren't known as a team that can't rush

the passion because they kind of do it

with a whole bunch of different people.

Maybe it's not about individual stats,

but collective group effort and that is going to be the thing

that allows the Jacksonville Jaguar

to absolutely get after the pass rush for this year.

But getting rid of Eric Armstrong's dead now

or even after June 1st, while the $14 million

you save in cap space after June 1st,

sounds tremendous.

It does.

You gotta understand that they've already given him

most of that money.

That is the amortized version of that.

The reason why there's a two, it's $2 million now

and $14 million after June 1st is because

you already gave him the money

and you're just spreading the rest of that money out

over the life of the contract or the void years

that are left and I think it's two or three years.

So they'll be paying that dead money into the future

for like three years if they cut him and it'll be broken up.

The reason why they would explode into the,

accelerate into the cap this year right now

is because when you do it before June 1st,

anything that you've given a player

accelerates into the cap right away.

So in order for them to do that,

they would have to cut people or restructure other people

just to absorb that.

Because you still need the money to pay your draft picks.

You can't go, if you got five million above the cap right now,

you can't take a $14 million hit

and end up nine million underneath it

and then have to scrape and scratch

to get the money that you need to sign your rookies.

So you leave them there now, you bring them in.

If you need to save that cash for a reason,

you can cut them after June 1st,

but you better have a replacement

because we can talk about saving a couple of million dollars

in cap space, but if you ain't got a replacement,

you still have a big, big problem.

The one way this could be alleviated,

they draft somebody and that kid turns out

to be absolutely fabulous and they go,

we can get by with him and make some on Smith,

now we can let him go.

And then with the cap money that you save after June 1st,

that's where you start with your extension process

and maybe float some of that money in the next year's cap

so it won't be there.

Come next year in 2027 when you hit free agency again.

Make sure you tap in here on Locked On Jack

while you have a bonus show for you later on today.

Continuing to talk draft,

all of the things leading up to the draft,

we appreciate you here and don't take you for granted

to show a team every day.

We thank you for making us your first listen.

We'll see you later.

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and businesses connected and their data safe.

Learn more about how Comcast is investing

in a more connected America at comcastcorporation.com slash investment.

I checked all day first and saved hundreds

on my car insurance.

Really smart.

Unfortunately, I didn't check if I took the gas hose

out of my car's tank.

Ooh, not smart.

And I drove off while still attached

to pump number three.

Yeah, checking first is smart.

So check all state first for a quote that could save you hundreds.

Potential savings vary.

So did returns, conditions, and availability

all state-north American insurance company

and affiliates in Northwick, Illinois.