To Have (Jaguars) and Have Not (Colts)

Jessie Bates and Jordan Davis can help the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship Game.

As a box safety, Bates flows along the line of scrimmage, fills gaps and drops running backs in their tracks. He shuts down tight ends and receivers running underneath routes in coverage. Those are indispensable skills against the Bills’ multi-tight end offense. Bates also plays free safety, but that will probably remain Antonio Johnson's primary role in Jacksonville.

Wanna force one of those juicy James Cook fumbles? Bates forced three fumbles in the past month. He also scooped up a Mark Andrews fumble and returned it for a touchdown against the Ravens.

Davis is 336 pounds of gristle. At least, the Jaguars hope he’s 336 pounds. Davis might weigh in at around 356 right now. He can be forgiven for a little stress eating, though it may have impacted his performance during the Eagles’ slide into oblivion. 

Davis applied a few pressures and delivered a lick on Trevor Lawrence the last time the Jaguars saw him, which was October 11th in London. Reports of Davis’ 2026 ineffectiveness have been somewhat exaggerated by folks who hope the Eagles can still win trades, if not games.

When the Eagles beat the Bills 13-12 last December, Davis recorded five tackles, all of them at or around the line of scrimmage. The Bills were shut out until the fourth quarter of that game. Cook and Josh Allen combined for just 3.6 yards per rush. 

Davis can munch double teams, clog running lanes and chase Josh Allen towards Josh Hines-Allen, causing a matter-antimatter explosion.

Bates and Davis can make the Jaguars defense look like the Vikings defense that flummoxed the Bills for three quarters on Monday night. Lawrence and the Jaguars offense can do the rest.

I love to criticize Jaguars GM and jargon-spouting LinkedIn bro James Gladstone, but his flurry of trade deadline blockbusters made practical, tactical sense. The Jaguars lost safety Eric Murray to an elbow injury earlier in the year. They have been starting randos in their secondary ever since. Enter Bates. The Jaguars lost defensive tackle (and emergency long snapper) DaVon Hamilton to a quadriceps injury in the Colts game. The rest of the Jaguars line is populated by 290-pound three-techs and power forwards like Arik Armstead, not space eaters. Enter Davis.

If Gladstone just wanted to fill holes, however, he could have just done what the Lions did when they traded for former Jaguars safety Andre Cisco: spend prudently, improve incrementally. Indeed, Gladstone tossed Saints double-wide defender Davon Godchaux into his grocery bag while on his matcha break between the Bates and Davis trades. Godchaux will look pretty good next to Davis on fourth-and-goal; Joe Brady may take one look at them and abandon the Allen sneak for something far more creative/less effective. 

Bates and Davis are significant upgrades over the injured veterans they are replacing. The Jaguars aren’t just filling holes. Nor are they merely going “all-in” in some rhetorical sense. Gladstone has his eye on the biggest obstacle between the Jaguars and the Super Bowl, the team that barely nudged the Jaguars out of the playoffs last year.

The Jaguars have little to worry about for the remainder of the regular season. They face the Titans twice in the next three weeks. The Colts will be starting Philip Rivers’ grandson at quarterback by Week 18. The Jaguars face three more NFC East foes, including the apex-scavenger Giants in two weeks. With their three-game lead over the Texans in the AFC South, the Jaguars can afford to look ahead to the opponents they might face in January.

• The Chiefs? Davis and Bates can help contain Kenneth Walker. Bates faced the Chiefs in two AFC Championship games back when he played for the Bengals. He probably has a few ideas about how to keep Travis Kelce from slipping invisibly into holes in zones. And Davis sacked Patrick Mahomes in Super Bowl LIX. So Bates and Davis can help against the Chiefs, too. The Bills just made a tidier lede and hook. 
• The Steelers? They’re a running-and-tight-ends offense. 'Nuff said. Bates and Davis will prove useful when the Jaguars host the Steelers in Week 14.
• The Bengals? The newcomers won’t help much against Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. But they can keep anyone else from making an impact. And Bates practiced against these guys a few times. 
• The Broncos? Yes, they performed their fourth-quarter sorcery on the Jaguars in Week 2. But do the Broncos even have an offense?
• The Patriots? The 2026 Jaguars have no reason to fear the 2026 Patriots.

The Jaguars just got a couple of defenders who can help win slushy, mucky football games in Buffalo or Arrowhead. Not coincidentally, they also got a couple of defenders who have beaten the Bills, beaten the Chiefs, played in multiple conference title games and (in Davis’ case) own a Super Bowl ring.

The price? NEVER ASK JAMES GLADSTONE ABOUT THE PRICE. The Jaguars dealt with the Falcons braintrust of Ian Cunningham/Matt Ryan, Saints general mismanager Mickey Loomis and Howie Roseman this week. One of these front offices is NOT like the other. It’s a wonder Roseman didn’t walk away with one of Loomis’ draft picks through the transitive property of train robbery. 

Gladstone paid retail for Bates’ services: a second-round pick in 2027, a fifth-rounder in 2028. Howie talked Gladstone into the custom detailing package (2027 first-round pick) and extended warranty (2028 second-rounder) for Davis. There’s a reason the Eagles have built up and torn down two Super Bowl winners in the time the Falcons and Saints have spent dithering about how to replace their 2010s quarterbacks. 

Monday’s Jaguars blockbusters were not an A+ resource-management coup. The Jaguars just got older and more expensive. They are taking Rams-level risks with a less-than-Rams-level roster in a season where the Rams keep rolling snake eyes. 

But the Jaguars currently rank first in the NFL in DVOA. The road to the AFC Championship is rising up to meet them. Sitting on his hands, or making the meekest possible trade, is Brad Holmes’ style, not Gladstone’s style. Monday’s trades provided ideal solutions to specific problems. 

If Bates jars a fumble away from Kelce or Dalton Kincaid in the playoffs, if Davis causes the Bills or Chiefs offensive lines to crumple from the inside out, no one is gonna care who the Jaguars won’t be able to select in the 2027 draft.

The Colts: Rubes in Toyland

The Colts traded away Quenton Nelson, DeForest Buckner, Josh Downs and Keenan Allen over the last three weeks. 

In exchange, they received one third-round pick, two fourth-round picks, two fifth-rounders (one of them in 2028) and one sixth-rounder. They also swapped some seventh-rounders. 

That’s a rather meager pile of beans in exchange for a whole lotta beef. 

I’m reminded of a clever neighbor who would treat his child’s closest pals – the tykes he felt a social obligation to purchase gifts for, and whose parents he knew well – to a birthday trip to Five Below. Instead of buying a toy truck or overpriced Disney item that the tot might not appreciate, he set the kid loose with his kid in the budget-friendly gewgaw shop with a four-item limit. For 20 bucks, the birthday squirt got a combination playdate/shopping spree, whatever stuffed Poke-critters or silly trinkets tickled their immediate fancy, and (for a few dollars more) a Happy Meal. Nothing of value was ever obtained, except for an afternoon of activity and a priceless childhood memory.

Carlie Irsay-Gordon set deputy/interim/not-remotely-ready-for-this GM Ed Dodds loose at the trade deadline the way my neighbor set my kids loose at Five Below some (dear lord) 15-20 years ago. Except that Nelson and the others amount to more like 200 bucks than 20. And Dodds still came home with Matchbox cars and Hello Kitty keychains.

The Colts are lucky Dodds did not run into Howie Roseman behind a Dumpster. Howie might have netted a first-round pick for Jihaad Campbell. Except that the Colts don’t have a 2027 first-round pick, having traded it for Sauce Gardner last year. Also, Irsay-Gordon was surely hovering close behind Dobbs at all times, keeping a sharp lookout for Howie Stranger Danger.

(The Eagles got more from the Ravens for Cam Jurgens than the Colts got for Nelson. Not all GMs are created equal. And before you start telling me about player ages or contracts ... please.)

Parents of small children may recognize another familiar scenario that applies to the Colts: the tyke who attends a pal’s party with a carefully-selected-and-wrapped gift, then returns home with it. That’s usually not an act of (conscious) greed: kids are easily distracted and haven’t internalized the social construct of gift-giving. They might forget or misplace something very important during the whirlwind of distractions and overstimulation of a party.

Yes, that is a strained Jonathan Taylor metaphor. 

Longtime Indy sports columnist Bob Kravitz wrote in his newsletter that he gave up a round of golf to work the Colts trade deadline beat, just in case Taylor got traded. That was not a savvy veteran move. I raked and mulched the lawn, handled some important post-funerary paperwork and walked Frank the Tank on Tuesday, yet still had time for a Kirk Cousins reaction column and a podcast with Matt Lombardo. You’re slipping, Kravitz.

Kravitz recounted the much-reported Giants trade offer for Taylor: a 2027 second-round pick and a 2028 fifth-round selection. Dodds should have pounced on that deal like it was a new dirtbike. But the novice peddler, who dealt a Pro Bowl guard in his prime for what’s unlikely to be a top-75 pick, was reportedly holding out for Christian McCaffrey-level compensation: second, third AND fourth round picks, for a running back who is older and less dynamic than CMC was when the 49ers acquired him in 2022.

Taylor is now trapped in a terrible offense on a directionless team. At least he’s used to it. Sisyphus had more reasons to be optimistic than Taylor, and worked nearly as hard to accomplish almost as little. 

Kravitz speculated a few weeks ago that Chris Ballard was fired in early October because season ticket renewal letters were going out and the Colts needed to signal to their most loyal customers that next year would be different. I believe the Colts set the asking price for Taylor unreasonably high for similar reasons. Someone needs to be the face of the franchise. Someone’s jersey has to be a Christmas gift that doesn’t look like a booby prize. It can’t be Daniel Jones. Nelson, surely a favorite with Midwestern white dads, is now out of the picture. It’s Taylor, or it’s a Pacers or Fever jersey. 

If you don’t buy the theory that Taylor was retained to sell jerseys, you must at least acknowledge that trading him would cause a great deal of psychic damage to an organization that has been spiraling for a year. 

Ballard spent a decade as a replacement-level general manager: just good enough to get the Colts through year after year until the Sauce trade and Jones extension knocked him out like a pair of pick-6s. The backup quarterback is worse than even the weakest starter about 95% of the time. The same is true for executives. Dodds has been Ballard’s backup since 2017. If he was the right person to handle Nelson/Taylor level trades, he would already have been hired and fired by the Jets by now.

Dodds’ trade deadline deals were like his interview for a real GM job. In that respect, he was less like a toddler in a toy store than a tweener seeking gifts to send the proper message to a crush object. A dozen roses? Far too thirsty. A Hello Kitty keychain? Too thrifty and childish. A set of steak knives? Too weird. The ROI on the deals Dodds made and failed to make will likely banish him outside the dreaded friendzone. He is now in the even more dreaded classmatezone. Given a chance to make a statement of purpose, Dodds turned into Ralph Wiggum.

Wiggum … oops, Dodds … won’t be the Colts GM next year. Peyton Manning won’t be, either: figurehead front office roles became uncool the moment Matt Ryan landed one. I love the idea of Irsay-Gordon hiring former Howie lieutenant Catherine Hickman, but Irsay-Gordon and Caitlin Clark may represent all the feminism the state of Indiana can handle. 

No, Irsay-Gordon will hire a deputy from the 49ers or Chiefs front office, who will try and fail to lure Mike Tomlin to Indy to replace Shane Steichen, ending up with Anthony Campanile or Nate Scheelhaase. It’s a bland strategy, but not a bad one for a team that needs to rebuilt but doesn’t even have the zoning permits yet. 

Ballard’s greatest asset was his ability to draft sturdy starters and sign them to long-term second contracts. Nelson and Taylor were Ballard’s crowning achievements. Most of Ballard’s homegrown veterans are now gone: Nelson, Michael Pittman, Braden Smith, Zaire Franklin, Tyquan Lewis, Kwity Paye, Downs. There’s still some young talent like the recently-extended Adetomiwa Adebawore, but too many recent draft picks holding down starting jobs are more “young” than “talented.” It’s hard to find a unit of strength anywhere on the Colts roster. Even Sauce and Charvarius Ward aren’t playing in the same time zone as their reputations or salaries.

Ballard’s greatest flaw was his knack for painting himself into corners. He always paid a premium in salary and/or trade compensation, and expected the absolute best, from veteran quarterbacks who were available for a reason. He spent a little too much on those core starters in the last paragraph. He couldn’t bear to part with the unwanted Anthony Richardson. Ballard’s Colts were always losing four starters to re-sign three and acquire one. They haven’t known at Thanksgiving who next year’s quarterback would be since Andrew Luck started getting hurt. Ballard always left the team with no choice but to grab or re-sign some creaky quarterback and hope that the veteran, Wild Card-ish roster would catch fire.

Now the Colts find themselves in an even more dire version of the Ballard predicament. Who is next year’s quarterback? The Colts have burned through so many Jacoby Brissett/Gardner Minshew/Joe Flacco/Carson Wentz types that there aren’t even many punchline stopgaps to link them with. What can a bunch of midround picks do for them in the draft? Who is their go-to receiver? Is it Josh Dobbs, sitting on IR collecting Ballard Bucks?

Sauce is probably untradeable. Taylor’s trade value will never be higher than it was a few days ago. The next GM will probably just sign Geno Smith, hope to strike oil in Day Two of the draft, order the new coach to feed Taylor to the wolves and settle in for two more years of dreary irrelevance. 

The Colts may be the NFL’s saddest franchise right now. That’s a shame, because they approached the trade deadline like kids in a candy store.

Here’s the thing about kids in candy stores, however: they just aren’t ready for the excitement, so they’re likely to end up not getting what they really want.