First, let’s lay out the trade details...
JAX sends:
#5 (2025)
#36 (2025)
#126 (2025)
1st-round (2026)
CLE sends:
#2 (2025)
#104 (2025)
#200 (2025)
Just to properly value this trade, let’s drill down on exchange items a little more...
First, I would just cancel out the #126 for #200 part of this. You can get about the same quality of assets (and better) at #200 as #126. It’s a mostly inconsequential piece of the whole puzzle that we can ignore to cut down on the periphery noise of this deal.
The exchange of the JAX #36 pick for the CLE #104 pick in 2025...it’s a ‘win’ for the Browns but not devastating either way...just a nice win looking at the two picks isolated. A nice edge for the Browns in that exchange, looking at it that way...but not ‘wow’. Just ‘nice’.
The core of this deal, minus the other non-1st-round picks that were in the deal, the real impact/big-ticket pieces are:
Travis Hunter for the JAX #5 and the JAX 1st-round pick in 2026. Would you rather have Hunter or this year’s #5 and next year’s #17 (let’s say...middle of the draft round)?
If we put player names in there, using what just happened day one, the deal could be seen as kinda like...Travis Hunter for Mason Graham and Shemar Stewart. That’s a bad example because the Bengals at #17 made one of the worst picks of the entire draft...so let’s instead use the #18 Grey Zabel, who I love. Hunter for Graham and Stewart is a slam dunk, homerun, hat trick, whatever spots metaphor you want to use for Jacksonville.
So, would you exchange Hunter for Graham and Zabel? I’d rather have Hunter, football operationally...because it’s nearly Hunter for Zabel straight up, to me.
Let’s take it another step and say that ‘what if’ JAX just stayed at #5 and would’ve drafted Tetairoa McMillan. Would you do a Hunter for McMillan + Zabel exchange...three of my 4 highest rated players in this draft being exchanged?
I would probably still make the Hunter move...but I also love Zabel and McMillan.
My pro-Hunter logic is...
With Travis Hunter you just bought the most dynamic prospect in the history of the sport. Not the single best prospect, perhaps (the best of our era is Joe Burrow), but definitely the most dynamic in our lifetimes -- a potential star at both WR and CB, and if he is a two-way star...he may end up the greatest prospect of the past decade of the 2000s. The gained attention to the brand, the interest generated in the Jacksonville franchise just doubled+ in one move. The ‘Hunter’ jerseys that Jacksonville will sell will be insane. They likely would not have moved a ton of ‘Zabel’ jerseys by comparison.
The Jaguars just ‘activated’ the fanbase...and ‘activated’ a little more football fans in general -- people are discussing, gonna wanna watch the Jags now, at minimum, to see how Hunter does as a two-way player. The story sells itself. And the Jags GM has just ‘activated’ the locker room...there has to be a renewed spirit for the entire franchise with this move -- the downtrodden, lightly covered (media wise) team that seems to constantly be picking near the top of the draft...the ‘loser’ feel/mentality of the ‘Jaguars’ trading away of Jalen Ramsey and the busting of Fournette, Gabbert, Bortles...the lackluster Prince Trevor and Etienne combo that was supposed to save the day -- it’s all ancient history (for now) in one fell swoop with this trade. No one is buzzing about or thinking Carolina (Tet) or Seattle (Zabel) just changed the world with their picks, but most everyone is now interested and buzzing about Jacksonville.
But did it make football sense? Yes, it made in the off-the-field sense -- but did the trade make wins/losses sense?
Well, in our example trade the Jags gave up a starting WR (Tet) and a starting OL (Zabel) for Hunter, a starting WR/starting CB. You could see that exchange as debatably ‘even’...or you could say/think, ‘Well, what if the Jags held their picks and would’ve struck out with one of those 1st-round picks (either their #5 this year and next year’s 1st)?’ Jacksonville takes the guesswork out of ‘Will Tet McMillan be there #5?’ and ‘What will the middle of the draft be like in 2026?’. Jacksonville traded good money due later for a ‘sure’ thing/payday now.
No one thinks Hunter is going to bust. Arguing Hunter could be more injury prone, thus a risk, is specious and pure guesswork on a thing that really cannot be properly guessed. With Hunter you get a guaranteed ‘good’ player who could be a great player...could be a ‘legendary’ player in exchange for a really good 1st-round pick (#5...that CLE went on to butcher) and a nice 2026 1st-round pick, a likely middle of the pack pick.
If you argue back and forth about whether a #2 for #5 swap plus next year’s #1 is giving up too much hope in the picks...you’d see about ‘even’ then, and maybe you want to give the Browns the edge on technical points because they also got a 2nd for a 4th...AND if you drill it down to ‘best case’ hopes with all the picks...then by the letter of the law or that stupid, antiquated trade chart point system...then Cleveland made a decent deal. But that’s assuming the best-case view (for CLE) on all the picks.
If you take a 50/50 approach to the picks...that draft picks are coin flips in success with NFL teams (for various reasons) -- then the Browns got four coin flips, so 2 useful picks...and the Jags got two coin flips, so 1 useful pick PLUS they got a near guaranteed/baseline ‘good’ pick/player in Hunter, with upside to ‘greatness’. Would you trade 2 pick successes (out of 4) for 1 pick success (out of 2) AND Travis Hunter? Worst case, you come out about even -- AND get all the other side benefits of Hunter.
If you think you’d hit a homerun with all the picks, then you probably don’t like the deal...but then you’re also delusional. If you think the risk is more that the pickers are butchered or inconsequential -- then this was a brilliant deal by the Jags. Somewhere in-between hitting all home runs and striking out every time may lie the truth, but honestly the NFL butchers or wastes most of its draft picks, so I think the odds are Jacksonville will win this deal by a mile.
Sometimes you need to be aggressive...sometimes you need to overpay...sometimes you gotta get that potentially awesome thing NOW and now worry about a payment due in a year.
I think this trade is worst case ‘fine’/even technically or ‘on paper’...but ‘best case’ it is a generational move for the Jags. The Jags have changed their whole paradigm with this pick.
For me, and why I would do this trade if I were the Jags’ GM...beyond trying to cross-examine what all the nebulous picks are gonna turn out to be, I turn to a quote from Jerry Jones that I will never forget:
“When I look back on my life, I overpaid for my big successes every time. And when I tried to get a bargain, get it a little cheaper or get a better deal on it, I ended up usually either getting it and not happy I got it. Or missing it.”
AND
“The truth is most anything that I’ve ever been involved in that ended up being special, I overpaid for, every time.”
We can obviously give bad examples of overpaying, but I think you understand the context of what Jerry was saying. Sometimes you just ‘go for it’ when you got something special in your potential grasp. I think the Jags did just that -- and should be applauded for doing what most NFL GMs are too scared to do. The Giants could have matched/beat this deal with the #3 pick swap...but where was Joe Schoen? Probably with his thumb up his ass waiting for someone to call him. Congratulations on Jaxson Dart, speaking of wasted draft picks and paying too much...
James Goldstone didn’t wait for Cleveland to call him.
In 10+ years, when we all talk about this deal -- I don’t think we’ll remember it fondly for the Browns.
What is the price you should pay for the original Mona Lisa painting? What is the value of possessing 1-of-1?
What Jaguar fan is going to step up and buy me a ‘Hunter’ authentic jersey?
