The Vanderbilt football program recently held its Pro Day, and 31 NFL teams were at the event. The one team that did not attend? The Jacksonville Jaguars.
The Vanderbilt football X account recently released a graphic highlighting each of the NFL teams that were in attendance, but the Jaguars‘ logo was nowhere to be found.
Pro Days are an opportunity for this year’s draft prospects to go through on-field testing and position-specific drills in front of NFL evaluators.
Under GM James Gladstone, the Jaguars prefer to operate in silence and fly under the radar during this time of the year.
This includes Gladstone and Liam Coen not attending the NFL combine this past February, nor do the Jaguars host players for official 30 visits during the pre-draft process. Even Jacksonville’s blockbuster draft day trade for Travis Hunter last year was kept quiet in the weeks leading up to the event.
“They don’t want to conduct any top 30 visits either because they don’t want their opinion of a player to be changed or altered in any way based on a 15-20 minute visit,” ESPN’s Michael DiRocco said of the Jaguars prior to the NFL combine. “This is a system that the Rams use, and they’ve used it quite successfully, as you can see by their success over the last decade or so.”
The Jaguars not attending Vanderbilt’s Pro Day may not necessarily mean that they are not interested in any of their draft prospects. Instead, Jacksonville could be leaning more heavily on the information gathered by scouts and the medical staff about these players at the NFL combine, along with all the legwork already put in during the scouting process, which goes well beyond just this offseason.
The top draft-eligible prospects on Vanderbilt, according to PFF, are tight end Eli Stowers, quarterback Diego Pavia, and defensive end Miles Capers.
