NFL Trade Rumors
Both GM James Gladstone and VP Tony Boselli gave details regarding the team’s plan to trade up to the No. 2 overall pick and select Travis Hunter. Boselli said they figured out early in the process it would be a goal.
“Pretty much immediately,” Boselli said via Jaguars Wire. “At least in my mind, I was like, why not? If we have a chance to go and get a generational talent, a guy who is trying to redefine the game of football, as far as playing on both sides of the ball, I think it’s a great idea.”
“Thoughts surfaced towards the top,” Gladstone added. “One of which was prioritizing Travis and seeing if there would be a potential trade partner. We had the parameters, the framework of the trade in place, hung with that for roughly two weeks until it was executed once Cleveland was on the clock. And obviously, during that window, you’re continuing to work through scenarios if something were to change. Obviously, with a trade of this magnitude, if something were to get out it could impact whether or not it would go through and so you gotta keep a tight circle in that regard and make sure nothing could impact what you think is best for the franchise.”
The Jaguars were one of the stealthiest teams in the league ahead of the draft, aided by their policy of not doing official 30 visits, but about a week before the draft there started to be significant chatter about their plans. Gladstone denied that they were planting any kind of smokescreens.
“We actually try not to have any sort of movement become public knowledge and allow just the natural order of dialogue that exists across the media landscape take its own path,” Gladstone concluded. “There’s no intentional smoke screens that we deployed but rather we didn’t share what we were in fact doing. So the unknown is what creates the natural smoke screen, so to speak. We don’t have to do anything other than that.”
