Jaguars general manager James Gladstone said Tuesday that you should not take the team’s aggressive trade deadline approach to mean that it does not value picks.
“I know the idea of ‘F them picks’ has kind of taken a hold and it’s a headline, but it’s really not the approach or the process,” Gladstone, 36, told reporters after the trade deadline passed.
Jacksonville — sitting atop the AFC South at 6-2 — made a flurry of trades Monday to bolster the defense of what most consider a Super Bowl contender.
The most significant move was acquiring defensive tackle Jordan Davis from the Eagles for a 2027 first-round pick and 2029 second-round pick.
The Jaguars also added Pro Bowl safety Jessie Bates from the Falcons for a 2027 second-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round pick, and landed defensive tackle Davon Godchaux from the Saints for a conditional sixth-round pick in 2028.
The “F them picks” mantra originated from Rams general manager Les Snead, who uttered the phrase while building the Rams into a Super Bowl champion in 2022.
Gladstone worked under Snead in a variety of roles in Los Angeles from 2017-24 before getting the Jaguars’ general manager job.
“If you think back to my experience in Los Angeles over the time I was there from the 2017 draft to the 2024 draft, we were able to have the most selections across the NFL from all 32 teams,” Gladstone said. “But there was a narrative around ‘F them picks’ tied to us. It’s in the value of picks that’s important and it ties back to how we operated in free agency this past spring.
“Not signing external free agents is an important piece when you have internal free agents signing elsewhere that can earn you a compensatory pick, thus supplementing the loss of any draft selection that you may choose to use outside the three days that exist in April to make a selection. It’s a very symbiotic process that encompasses a lot of layers to it, but it’s certainly not ‘F them picks.’ While that’s been characterized as the approach, we actually value picks. We don’t always use them on the three days that exist in April.”
The Jaguars, who take on the Titans on Sunday, are currently the AFC’s No. 3 seed behind the Bills and Broncos.
They seem to have found their coach-QB combo with Liam Coen bringing out the best in Trevor Lawrence after his struggles in past regimes caused concerns that the former Clemson star would be a bust.
The Jaguars won the AFC South last year in Coen and Gladstone’s first season before losing to the Bills in the wild-card round.
