Over the coming weeks with the NFL’s free agency period on the horizon, I will be taking a closer look at each of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ pending free agents and predicting whether or not each player will return or sign elsewhere.
Up first, let’s start with quarterback Mac Jones.
The Jaguars acquired Mac Jones last offseason via a trade from the New England Patriots. With Jones playing out the final year of his rookie deal, it was an inexpensive contract for the Jaguars to take on, with a cap hit of only $2.78 million, according to Over the Cap.
With Trevor Lawrence missing time due to injuries, Jones saw quite a bit of action, appearing in 10 games, including seven starts.
He would finish the season completing 65% of his throws at 6.4 yards per pass–ranking 34th in that category–with seven touchdowns to eight interceptions. The Jaguars offense would eclipse the 20 point mark in just four of those games.
The tricky part here when making this prediction is that quarterback is very much a need for the Jaguars. As of now, Lawrence is the only quarterback under contract for the 2025 season.
There were 44 quarterbacks in the NFL in 2024 who had at least 146 dropbacks. Of course, not all of that was injury related, some of it is poor play, but it also goes to show that almost half of the NFL had to rely on a secondary quarterback option to play significant snaps this past year.
But on the flip side of that, when a team has an established quarterback like Lawrence, how much are the Jaguars willing to invest cap-wise into the backup quarterback role, when there are obviously more pressing needs to address?
That’s the question that the next general manager will have to answer and a balance that he’ll have to strike.
Having said all of that, my prediction is that Jones signs elsewhere this offseason. There are a lot of teams who will be looking to drum up some quarterback competition or have question marks around their current starter and I think someone with Jones’ experience will get more from another team than what the Jaguars will be willing to pay–especially with Jones being a former first round pick. With that usually comes multiple opportunities.
Prediction: Mac Jones signs elsewhere.
