What we learned: Jaguars' Baalke, Pederson hold pre-2024 NFL Draft luncheon

Jacksonville Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke and head coach Doug Pederson will head into the war room Monday and finalize the team's draft board ahead of the 2024 NFL Draft.

When the draft begins Thursday, April 25, at 8 p.m., all bets are off, but the Jaguars hope to have a pretty good idea of what to expect heading into the big day.

"You think you got an idea, you go in with a pretty good idea of what it looks like and what your options might be, whether that’s three or four players we’re looking at right now. We’re not there yet, we’ve still got a couple of days to go through," Baalke told members of the media at the team's annual pre-draft luncheon Thursday.

"Coach and I haven’t sat down and gone through the final board yet. We’ll do that on Monday. But we like how it’s shaping up and we’ve still got some work to do.”

Jacksonville holds eight picks in the draft, including one selection in each of the seven rounds and two selections in the fourth round.

Before the draft, the Jaguars invested large sums of money into multiple players via free agency, a departure from the team's mindset a year ago. Baalke indicated Thursday that, that's part of the plan in so far as roster building is concerned, addressing needs early to enter the draft with an open mind.

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"I think you try to address needs in free agency. You try to attack it that way. The less needs you have going into the draft, the better. It allows you to then stick to that formula of drafting the best player available," said Baalke. "We feel comfortable, I think Coach can speak on that, too, we feel comfortable with where we’re at and we’ve got a ways to go.”

Jacksonville is in a prime position to address some key needs at next week's draft, but how will they get there?

When in doubt, drafting for need "need" trumps all for Jaguars

Baalke was clear that the team wants to stick with the formula of taking the best available player that corresponds with the team's board.

However, he did give in to a bit of logic when answering a question about the team needing to draft players who can be key contributors right out of the gate as rookies.

"You try to find the best players, that's what you try to do in the draft. We have some needs, obviously, that we need to address and the board's got to fall the right way," said Baalke. "Needs are paramount, but we're going to stick with our formula and draft the best players available."

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However, upon answering a follow-up, Baalke indicated that the separation between a need-based position and another position likely isn't great. In the end, a need-based pick will be the answer if it's close.

"Most of the time, there isn't that big of a separation between a need and another position. When in doubt, you're going to take the need, if it's close," said Baalke. "If there's a great distance between the two, you've got to weigh that out. Usually, what we've done in the past, is stick with the formula and take the best player available. Now, again, if it's close, we're going to take the higher need."

All 32 teams will typically say that the best available player will be their selection. Rarely does it work out that way. The Jaguars have needs they still have to address, even with the free-agent haul, and will likely do so early and often next week.

"If they’re both in the first round and we feel good about both of them and everything else is equal; culture, football IQ, all that stuff, go with the need," Baalke later said.

Baalke thinks highly of OL, WR and CB groups in 2024 NFL Draft

Certainly, a general manager won't tell you what position groups they feel strongly about, but Baalke did give answers when asked about three position groups in particular on Thursday: offensive line, wide receiver rand cornerback.

While all three answers spoke positively about the group, there was a bit of a difference when Baalke broke each position down.

When asked about the offensive line group in the draft, Baalke said he felt that it was a "very good group" both inside and outside. He noted that the value for that position could lie in the latter rounds.

"I think there's great value throughout the draft, I think you're going to find starters in the fourth, fifth round. That are eventually going to find their way into starting," Baalke said.

"There's always some guys that even go later than that," he noted, adding that players need to be given time to develop.

When asked about the receiver position, Baalke acknowledged that three "very good" receivers in particular are talked about (presumably Washington's Rome Odunze, LSU's Malik Nabers and Ohio State's Marvin Harrison Jr.), but he sees value throughout the draft and some that fit in the "next wave" of players.

"I think there’s good players like that all the way through the draft in that position. There’s going to be some later-round guys that make a mark for themselves at some point in their careers in this league as well," said Baalke.

"It’s a good group, there’s a lot of variations of guys, guys strictly in the slot, guys strictly out on the perimeter. There are some guys that can move around the formations a little bit more. It’s a good group of receivers.”

As for the cornerback group in this year's draft, Baalke stated that there could be 28 or even 32 different boards in the league that have the group in various orders. Essentially, it's close between many of the players.

"I think if you looked at 32 boards, you’d probably find 28 different ways to stack the top 10 corners in this draft. You might find 32 different ways. I think it’s that close," Baalke said of this year's cornerback class. "I think there’s good value, they’re good players, the makeup and character of these players are all different, it’s all over the board. It’s going to be interesting how that group falls off the board on draft day.”

The Jaguars will need to address all three position groups at some point next week. It appears when they do, they'll be able to find players that can help sooner rather than later.

Ryan Nielsen's arrival will have an impact on Jaguars NFL Draft selections

With a change in scheme, comes a change in personnel.

The Jaguars have already begun working on acquiring players that will fit into defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen's scheme, a departure from former DC Mike Caldwell's system.

They've signed veteran cornerback Ronald Darby, defensive lineman Arik Armstead and safety/nickel defensive back Darnell Savage, namely that will look to reshape the group.

Now, with Nielsen's input, the Jaguars will look to continue addressing position groups that need a closer look.

Since Baalke and Pederson joined teams in 2022, they've consistently messaged a collaboration between the personnel and coaching side of things within the building. That much has improved, if anything, Pederson said.

"I'll tell you something, as far as our involvement as a staff and myself, it's the best I've been around. It's one of the things that Trent [Baalke] really has been open to the evaluation process from the coaches. He understands the coaching side of it as well as the scouting side of it," said Pederson.

"The involvement has been the same every year, it's probably even gotten a little bit more, just the more comfortable we are working together. It takes everybody to put a roster together. It's not about one guy making all the decisions. So, there's a lot of input. He values what the coaches say and how the coaches rank and stack players."

The Jaguars are changing from a 30 (three down linemen) defense to a 40 (four down linemen) defense this year with Nielsen's arrival. Baalke indicated that it changes some of the types of players the team looks for, but the traits will remain similar as both stem from the same coaching tree that includes Sean Payton and Bill Parcells.

"What he's looking for at the end position is different than what we were looking for in the last scheme. So, there's definitely a change but it's a change I'm very familiar with. So, it's been good. Ryan and his staff, we've had a very good dialogue. We've spent a lot of time when he first got here, going through exactly what he was looking for at different positions," Baalke explained.

"How we were going to play the corners in this scheme versus how we played them in the past, hope the linebackers are going to fit and how we were going to get the SAM (strong-side) linebacker position filled from within. So we had a lot of great dialogue and it's been fun to learn what he's looking for in players."

Cornerback is a position that's been linked to Jacksonville for a while. Getting players that fit into what Nielsen wants will be paramount to the team's build moving forward.

Demetrius Harvey is the Jacksonville Jaguars reporter for the Florida Times-Union. You can follow him on X,  formerly known as Twitter, at @Demetrius82.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars honing in on need, feel strong about roster as 2024 NFL Draft nears