The BIGGEST "WHAT IF'S" For The Jacksonville Jaguars In 2026 Involves Arik Armstead, BTJ, & Travis

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Let's get right down to it.

I'm going to tell you what we're going to talk about today.

At the end of the show, we're going to talk about what if Travis Hunter is, at least,

middle.

We'll talk about what if BT reverts back to rookie BT?

That is Brian Thomas Jr., and we're going to start talking about Eric Armstead.

What if Eric Armstead delivers?

In fact, what if all three of those things happen?

It is absolutely possible that all three of these things that I'm going to discuss today

could happen.

And we're going to hit them one at a time.

I'm telling you, after 13 and four seasons, man, where a lot of things did not go right

for the Jaguar.

It's not.

Things that people thought were going to be automatic didn't happen, and the Jaguar still

had a great season.

Well, let's call it a very good season, because a great season would have meant they won

the Lombardi trophy.

So we're not going to move the goalposts for standards that we want around here.

The Jaguar, we want the Jaguars to win championships with an S, right?

So let's get to it.

The first thing I want to talk about is, if I told you last year that moving air

at Armstead inside, back to three technique where he was signed to play, well, he should

have been signed to play, y'all have done cartwheels and said, Wig, if that happens, we're

going to go 13 and 4, right?

Guess what didn't happen?

Eric Armstead did not have the kind of year that everyone thought.

He just didn't.

And the Jaguar still had sort of a monumental shift in the trajectory of their franchise.

He started out the year very good.

I've been the biggest person begging and screaming for them to get a three technique.

And the Jaguars right now from a value standpoint have not addressed that in free agency.

The back up is Mason Smith.

He wasn't healthy at the beginning of last year.

Eric wasn't an Eric went out and Mason came back and they never seemed to get the inside

push from the three technique position unless they were in the sub package and they had

Trayvon Walker inside, which leads to everybody thinking that Trayvon needs to be a three technique

which is absolutely crazy.

But this year, with some good fortune in the health department, maybe both Eric Armstead

who the Jaguars did not restructure and they're keeping so far anyway, unless it's some

kind of June first designation.

But even with that, there's going to be a dead cap hit so you might as well keep Eric

Armstead.

And it's perhaps they know something that we don't about why he wasn't as effective

in the second half of the season as you'd like.

This is the part where we have to understand that the medical staff, the training staff,

the coaching staff, they know where all the quote unquote bodies are buried when it comes

to this stuff.

And the folks that do this for a living and fans, we do not know.

But I often say the actions of the team will tell you what they think.

Also the inaction of the people that make the decisions will tell you, if you pay attention

to it, what they're thinking.

Even if they prioritize three techniques, they don't have a first round pick.

So if they don't have a first round pick and they really think they need that, they

would have done something in three ages.

There's ways that they could have restructured.

These guys right now, they could restruct, they could restruct the train line and give

them an extension.

And it lowers it to the point where you could have signed, at least for the first year,

you could have competed with, you weren't getting John Franklin Myers because when I started

talking about John Franklin Myers, that was before Tennessee hired Robert Salah, who coached

John Franklin Myers in New York and did not want the jets to trade him.

So sometimes it's a familiar, familiarity situation.

Folks are going where people know how to use them and know their skillset.

And you know that's important if you're a Jaguars fan because Eric Armstead came here

and Ryan Nielsen decided that he was more of a big end.

He kind of treated him like he was Clay as Campbell, that he was more of a big end than

a three technique.

And that's just not correct in the hockey substitutions.

That all happened because they were looking at the year before and they said we weren't

fresh down the stretch.

So we need to rotate our guys, keep our guys fresh.

That wasn't the biggest problem for the Jaguars, the fact that they weren't fresh.

They just weren't led property.

So considering that we know now that they have really, really good leadership on this

football team, the one thing and the one whatever it is, what do they know more than we do?

And you know what?

It ain't even a whatever.

It's not even a question.

I guarantee you they know more than what we do.

The difference now is you trust that everyone is in line, even though they may not be right

about everything.

They were wrong about giving down me brown $10 million dollars.

No problem.

We fix it.

And we don't even talk about things that we may have missteps that we have made because

this current administration does not look to solve problems.

They look to find solutions.

And that's a solution to the BT not playing well who we'll talk about later was Jacobi

Myers, right?

And the Jaguars run defense made up for the fact that they didn't get a whole bunch of

pressure because when the run defense can run the ball and now from down to distant

situations, you put the team in a very, very rough situation where you know what they're

going to do.

It's easier for you than to now defend, even if you don't have great pass rush.

I don't think they counted on the injuries depleting the secondary.

And I don't think that they counted on having Trayvon Walker out doing a critical stretch

and Devon Lloyd out doing a critical stretch.

So even though they went 13 and 4, a lot of things actually worked against them and one

of them was Eric Armstead.

Now Eric Armstead will put you on that podcast in a second, not necessarily put you on

it, but he'll come out in a heartbeat and say, I guess all of the Twitter GMs are going

to go crazy now.

And see when he says stuff like that, you have to know that he's a high character person.

And what he's saying is to me, it's like saying there's something y'all don't know.

And we don't know to the extent of, we don't know how injured he was or we don't know

if whether or not when you saw him on the field, he was out there doing his best to actually

help the team.

We know about Trayvon because he had the club on, right?

He had the club on his hand that probably affected him for four weeks.

And then he had a little banged up the knee.

He probably was affected for like three, four, five weeks and that affected his sack totals

that affected the past rush.

But God, he was one of the Jews that was out there giving everything that he had.

So was Eric Armstead.

I absolutely believe that because one of the reasons I believe that, so it's quite possible.

It's quite possible that what happened is that Eric Armstead along with Mason Smith

were out there giving it the good old college try and doing everything that they could to

help their team.

And this staff knows that because they haven't even touched three techniques.

They haven't even, I think they're probably looking at guys in the draft.

But if they are, they don't have a first round pick.

They're going to take best player available at 56 if that's where they stay.

So the bottom line is there's not a whole bunch of three techniques in this draft and

they still did not go out in free agency and address it.

That's a critical thing to pay attention to because I believe they're banking on Eric Armstead

and Mason Smith both being healthier and having improved play this year.

And then if they can find or go out and identify someone in the draft on day two or day three,

that they can bring along to four to five position, that's exactly what is going to happen.

So whatever Eric Armstead is healthy, is that the only thing that they need him and

Mason Smith?

No, because what if Brian Thomas Jr. actually reverbs back to Brian Thomas Jr. of his rookie

year with the addition of Jacobi Myers and now the emergence of Parker Washington, they

could be a very, very dangerous offense.

I'll tell you why in detail, in just a second here, I'll lock down Jaguar.

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Listen, check this out.

Brian Thomas Jr., enigma, enigma, enigma, enigma, right?

Because it's his rookie year, he looked like I argue that he was should have been in the

top 100 and then all of a sudden he has this year.

And everyone who wasn't a Brian Thomas Jr. fan in the 2024 draft came out and told me,

I told you so weird.

After me, Pete cocking around, bragging on the fact that I wanted them to take Brian

Thomas Jr.

in that draft and they did and he had a very successful year with 1200 yards as a rookie.

But Jaguar is one or games.

Imagine this.

He struggles last year in a year where they won 13 games and only lost four.

So this is the second thing.

Everyone thinks that everything went right and it was all peaches and cream for the Jaguars.

This is why Jaguar fans believe that there is more blue sky in that this year can be even

a more successful year, even if it's not record wise, just who they are and their ability

to challenge for an AFC championship and probably a Super Bowl.

It's because the second thing that did not go right that this team depended on was Brian

Thomas Jr. being an all pro pro bowl type wide receiver.

If you'd asked any Jaguar fan that coming in the last season, who's most likely to be

an all pro, it would not have been Devon Lloyd.

In fact, it would have probably been either one of those edge rushers.

Travis Hunter believed in a foil lubricant who probably should have been an all pro and

hasn't been yet.

But mainly Brian Thomas Jr. will be the dude that was at the top of that list.

And then obviously, if you put him there, you might have to put Trevor in the conversation

too, because well, those two things go hand in hand.

But Brian Thomas Jr. did not have the second year that everyone thought he was going around

here in Jacksonville, including myself.

But he also didn't have a year that was worse or as bad as we make it seem.

Yeah, he had the drops, right?

He had the yips.

I think that's what they call it engulf when, for some reason, some odd reason things

don't go the way you wanted to go.

But he still statistically put up some numbers that would make you say, hmm, that's pretty

good for a team that won 13 games.

But that's because the expectation level was so high and the talent was so high.

And he was playing in a system led by Liam Cohen that wherever you have seen Liam Cohen

coaching the past, it has been super, super wide receiver friendly.

And for some reason, he did not play well.

I mean, from Cooper Cuck to Pukin, to Pukin the Coo to a litany of guys in Tampa that

have played under Liam Cohen, this offense and this offense by his, the people that he

is a disciple of, Sean McVay, even the guys up in Minnesota, they've always had offensive

that have been wide receiver friendly.

You take Brian Thomas Jr. and put him in that and you wonder why we can debate whether

or not it was because of his lack of physicality, the goat of Jaguar's wide receiver says his

stance is too high.

He doesn't Jimmy Smith and he led to him getting blocked by BT, which I hope they fix that.

But where I come from, you learn to stay out of that kind of stuff and let it kind of work

itself out in the conversation to be had.

Maybe there can be help there.

The wide receiver coach, Jacob Bennett, has been around this game and has won championships

for 30 some odd years, so and Liam Cohen is there, right, and they have other people

on the grant you didn't.

They have a litany of people that if Brian Thomas Jr. has some technical flaws, they could

get fixed.

But there's still room for you to listen to great players.

Kind of reminds me of everybody thinking that a conversation with Tony Bacelli can uplift

Walker Little.

Well, perhaps it can, but Bacelli is right there in the building and I think Tony knows

that the worst thing you can do is get in a guy's ear when there's coaches and you've

hired people to do that at every single level.

That would be like I can like Trent Balky and we don't want that do we?

No, we don't.

So can you imagine what if Brian Thomas Jr. reverts to the form he had as a rookie combined

with Parker Washington emerging as a top-notch receiver in the National Football League combined

with the improved player, Trevor Lawrence and combined with the improved play of Britain

Strange combined with the improved players offensive line, the additions at running back

that are going to lead to more people being in the box with Chris Rodriguez Jr. and with

Mr. Steadier Jacobi Myers at the F position in the slide.

This offense could just take off and give you things that you couldn't even imagine happening.

So for everyone thinks that the Jaguars just had this great, great season, which they

did or a very good season, which they did and everything lined up perfectly.

That would be wrong.

I think the thing number one was we need Trevor to get with Liam and they need to come up

with that happen offensive line play all we want it was just a stalemate.

It was a little bit more than stalemate.

They were very, very positive signs for the offensive line.

But outside of those two things, with Eric Armstrong still moving back inside and not

being healthy, but it may sound Smith not taking a step because he was healthy and Brian

Thomas Jr. struggling throughout the season.

You think could anything be worse than that hold my beer because it was and what that is

is Travis Hunter not playing a full season and being hurt.

He played six games.

Most of his action came at wide receiver.

Now he's going to play corner.

Full time and they're going to spot him in at wide receiver.

I'll tell you why him coming back from injury and being elite can really boost the Jaguars

and put them in another stratosphere.

I'll get to it in just a second here on Locked On Jaguar.

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Rolling along here.

Third final segment on locked on Jaguar, we're discussing big what else.

And we're dispelling this myth, it hasn't really been discussed a whole lot, but there's

just this feeling that people think because the Jaguars went 13 and 4 that it was the opposite

of Murphy's law.

Murphy's law is when everything that can't go wrong will go wrong.

Everyone thinks that it was the total opposite that Jaguars had everything lined up like an

eclipse and everything was perfect.

That is incorrect.

The biggest what if that running a very, very close race with Brian Thomas Jr. not playing

the way he did as a rookie was Travis Hunter not being available for two thirds of the

season.

If I told you that the Jaguars have to spend in two first round picks and a bunch of

change on Travis Hunter, wouldn't really figure out Travis Hunter until like week four, week

five, wouldn't figure out this experiment that they were having of trying to get Travis

Hunter to play offense and defense with equal time and still be an effective player.

In fact, I told anybody who would listen, maybe this is a Reggie Bush thing, maybe his

impact is high, but because he's not just doing one thing, maybe he won't get credit

for being great at one thing, but maybe his impact and if they win those things with the

big plays in the winning combined would make it all worthwhile, even if statistically

the numbers didn't support it.

Well, just as he turned the corner for that start happening against the chiefs on Monday

night, making big plays, making folks miss against Seattle.

He made a couple of plays against the team full of dogs and at that time we didn't know

they were, but then they ended up winning the Super Bowl.

He made, there were plays out there against them where he made them look crazy.

And then against the Rams, he was probably individually and statistically the best player

on the field.

And again, where the Jaguars really got blown out over in London and then he goes to practice

and he has a non-football injury that keeps him out for the rest of the season.

If I had told you that, you'd be like, ain't no way the Jaguars going to win 13 games.

No, we ain't going to win 13 games.

We ain't going to make the playoffs.

But then if I were to combine them with Brian Thomas, Junior Struggling and Eric Armstiff

Struggling, you'd have been like, yeah, they're going to win four games again.

They didn't.

They only lost four games and they won 13.

Whatever Travis Hunter comes back and he's an all pro corner.

And when you talk about Pat Surtinge, Junior and you talk about Derek Stingley, you're

having a conversation that Travis Hunter is in that group.

And then what if he gives you snaps on offense and he ends up catching big touchdowns and

big plays and making people look foolish and stupid.

And maybe in a big game or two, you even put him at punt return if you need a spark in

the fourth quarter and he does something that absolutely changed the game in a Deshaan

Jackson type of way.

Then you'll go, the Jags might be on the sun.

Combine that with those other two things that went wrong and we might be cooking with

Greece.

Don't let everybody tell you that the Jaguars had a lucky season where everything lined

up perfectly.

That kind of happened in 2017 that despite the fact that Alan Robinson was out and Blake

Borders was a marginal quarterback when it comes to passing the football, the Jaguars

found a way in 2017 to be a smash mouth in your face defense that had them a half a quarter

away from going to the Super Bowl that year.

And I think if they got to the Super Bowl, they would have beat the Rams and won it.

I don't think it's whatever's anymore.

I believe the Jaguars have every right and the fans have every right to believe and think

that this season is going to be different.

That this season is going to be magical.

That this season is going to be while maybe not 13 and fourish, maybe not even as nostalgic

as last year because first year with the new coach, first year with the new organization,

first year with Blue Sky, first year with Usain.

Okay.

They finally finally finally cut bait and ties with everyone from their past, which they

had not ever previously done.

This could truly be the year that is absolutely special for Jacksonville.

Now, I keep saying even if the record isn't matched.

If they win one less game and they go 12 and 5, but they position themselves that by the

end of the year and all of the parts have come back together, they've gotten Jordan Lewis

back and everybody's dialed in on the defense.

I tell you what's going to happen.

You're going to lose those two assistants that the Jaguars actually got back after Anthony

Campanilly and Grant Judinski.

They won't be back next year and you might lose some position coaches to coordinate a

role.

This is what happens if you win two years in a row.

People will realize, okay, it's not a fluke.

After only one year, these dudes got interviews for head coaching jobs.

You win two years in a row and you make a deep run into the playoffs, which of all three

of these things that did not occur last year happened for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

They very, very well could do that, but it's a good place to be.

It's a really good place to be.

So while the Jaguars haven't been active in free agency and they don't have a first-round

pick, don't think for one minute, don't think for one minute that there aren't things,

that there aren't things that can be done in order for the Jaguars to really, really improve

without actually going, adding a whole bunch of players, other than Chris Rodriguez Jr.

Maybe a vet or two after the draft, but then bringing that draft class in and bringing

that rookie free agency class in, getting younger, finding blue guys that you can actually

plug in and develop that can eventually be starters a year or two from now as you start

moving on to different players.

I think it's a very tangible thing to think about that could occur and I don't think

it's that far off.

And when those things happen, continue to develop the offensive line, maybe make another

move or two before the trade deadline that could help you now in in the future.

Don't even get me started that if they find a way to restructure Trayvon and then use

the restructured savings as a way to make a trade for Trent Williams that does not involve

a 2027 first-round pick because Trent Williams is 38 years old or do something of that ilk

or maybe get involved with another pass rusher that is a dude who's really good at what

he does, but is that sort of the end of his career and he doesn't mind that he's only

going to play 25 snaps of game, mostly on passing downs and you could get him for a nominal

fee and they could help the pass rush.

All of these things could actually occur and then you'll see why and they're going to

get Caleb Ransol back.

They're going to get people back that they were dependent on last year that were not available

to him.

Jordan Lewis is big and they're going to keep hopefully Eric Murray healthy.

Antonio Johnson can continue his ascent towards being a real good player.

Ventura Miller takes advantage of his shot at Lymebacker or they draft some dude that's

better than a whole bunch of people thought he was and that guy comes in here and he's

ready to go from day one.

They actually become a power team on offense and start daring you to throw the ball on

defense, can get pass rush, can mix up the coverage and some of those balls that people

throw last year that looked like easy completions.

Well now Monterey Brown has another year in a system that fits him and then you get in

Travis Hunter who can jump balls and get easy points with pick sixes, change field position

with interceptions and Jordan Lewis coming back and being the Jordan Lewis that he's always

been.

I'm telling you man, I'm not trying to gasch all up but I am telling you that I see

a tangible path to the Jaguar is actually being a better team in 2026 than they were

in 2025 even if the record doesn't say that that's what it is.

I just want to be good towards the end of the year.

It's the end of the show but you guys are good each and every day here because you're

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