Jaguars general manager Trent Baalke walked into this draft a marked man. He is an executive with a spotty reputation who may have scared away some coaching candidates this past winter. He pilots a team desperate to grasp normalcy after Urban Meyer’s tumultuous tenure set the franchise’s league-wide perception drastically adrift.
The easy route for Baalke on Thursday night with the No. 1 pick—the second straight year Jacksonville is picking atop the NFL draft order—would have been to take the player everyone assumed he would select. For a majority of the predraft process that was Michigan defensive end Aidan Hutchinson.
