Jaguars General Manager James Gladstone doesn’t view this week’s moves to acquire safety Jessie Bates, defensive tackle Jordan Davis, and defensive tackle Davon Godchaux in the same light as many others around the football world have characterized them.
Gladstone sent away the team’s 2027 first- and second-round picks, 2028 fifth- and sixth-round picks, and 2029 second-round pick in three Monday trades, which has been positioned as going all-in on maximizing the team’s Super Bowl chances after a 6-2 start. In a Tuesday press conference, Gladstone said he wouldn’t “necessarily” use the same framing and said he’d describe the team’s approach as always “getting better as a football team and prioritizing getting better as a football team.”
Another popular response has been that Gladstone has adopted his former Rams boss Les Snead’s “F them picks” to building the team’s Super Bowl LVI winners and subsequent teams. Gladstone noted that the Rams made plenty of picks while he was there from 2017-2024 and that he always takes into account the compensatory draft pick process during free agency as a way to supplement assets that can be used in a variety of ways.
“It’s a very symbiotic process that encompasses a lot of layers to it, but it’s certainly not ‘F them picks,’” Gladstone said. “While that’s been characterized as the approach, it’s not necessarily — we actually value picks. We don’t always use them on the three days that exist in April.”
Gladstone also acknowledged that “a part of it” is acquiring known commodities rather than gambling on the unknown trajectories of draft picks. There’s a gamble involved with the Jaguars’ approach as well and the way it pays off will be a big part of Gladstone’s ultimate legacy in Jacksonville.