Defensive end Travon Walker will be sticking around Jacksonville for a while.
Walker’s agents announced that he has agreed to a four-year extension with the Jaguars. The deal is worth $110 million and includes $77 million in total guarantees with $50 million fully guaranteed at signing.
Walker was the first overall pick of the 2022 draft and was set to play out the final year of his rookie deal in 2026. He had back-to-back 10-sack seasons in 2023 and 2024 and has recorded 200 tackles, 27.5 sacks, an interception, three forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and a fumble return for a touchdown.
Jaguars General Manager James Gladstone talked about extending Walker at this week’s league meeting. He also mentioned wide receiver Parker Washington and tight end Brenton Strange as candidates for new deals, so there may be more news out of Jacksonville on the contract front in the near future.
Jaguars Clips
Offseason programs will start getting underway around the NFL next week.
The ten teams that hired new coaches this offseason will be eligible to start working with their players on Monday, April 6. The Ravens are the only team that has set that as their first day of work while the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, Giants, Steelers and Titans have set Tuesday as their opening day.
All of those teams will also be able to hold a voluntary minicamp later in the spring. Every team is also scheduled to hold a rookie minicamp and a mandatory minicamp over the course of the next few months.
The first two weeks of work for all teams is limited to meetings, strength and conditioning, and physical rehabilitation only. The three-week second phase allows for on-field work, but no full-speed team drills while the third OTA phase allows for team drills, but there is no live contact allowed at any point in the offseason.
Most of the 22 teams with returning coaches will be opening their offseason programs on April 20 or 21. The Broncos have set May 4 as their first day.
When it comes to the performative antics of Florida attorney general James Uthmeier, we’ve urged the league to respond with three words: “Bring it on.”
On Tuesday, Commissioner Roger Goodell essentially said just that during his press conference at the NFL annual meeting.
Asked whether the Rooney Rule, which Uthmeier has demanded the NFL ditch as to the three Florida-based teams, is going anywhere, Goodell was clear: “No. No, the Rooney Rule has been around a long time. We’ve evolved it, changed it. We’ll continue to do that as circumstances warrant.”
The league may be changing the Rooney Rule, but it won’t be changing it to create less diversity in the selection of candidates for key jobs.
“Well, the one thing that doesn’t change is our values,” Goodell said. “We believe that diversity has been a benefit to the National Football League. We are well aware of the laws, where the laws are changing or evolving. We think the Rooney Rule is consistent with those. We certainly will engage with the Florida [attorney general] or anybody else, as we have in the past, to talk about the policies and what they are.
“As you know, the Rooney Rule is not a hiring mandate. It’s intended to try to help and has been used by industries far beyond football, far beyond the United States, to help identify candidates — a diverse set of candidates — bring in better talent, and gives us an opportunity to hire the best talent. Ultimately, clubs make those decisions individually and those are, I think, principles of how we try to get better — bring in the best talent.”
Uthmeier believes otherwise, obviously. And he has given the NFL a deadline of May 1 to scrap the Rooney Rule as to the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers, or risk potential enforcement action.
Call his bluff. Let him do it. Stick to your principles.
It sounds like that’s what the NFL plans to do.
The Jaguars will be calling Orlando home in 2027.
NFL owners unanimously approved the terms of the team’s agreement to play its home games in Orlando next year. They will not be able to play at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville because of extensive renovations to the stadium.
“The Jaguars couldn’t ask for a better scenario than Orlando and Camping World Stadium as our temporary home in 2027,” Jaguars owner Shad Khan said in a statement. “This couldn’t have happened without the endorsement of the league and team owners who approved our plan two years ago for a renovated Stadium of the Future in downtown Jacksonville, and we’re especially appreciative of the support of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers during the process. We’re also grateful to the team at Florida Citrus Sports that made this solution a reality that will benefit all, including Jaguars fans just a few hours away in Jacksonville. This is a win that everyone can celebrate.”
Those renovations will also limit the capacity at the team’s home games in 2026.
Jaguars head coach Liam Coen had a beef with Robert Saleh when Jacksonville faced the 49ers last season, but things appear to have calmed down ahead of Saleh’s first season as the Titans’ head coach.
Saleh said that Coen and the Jaguars had “a really advanced signal stealing-type system” that they deployed to their advantage ahead of a September game and Coen made it clear on the field that he didn’t appreciate Saleh’s comments after the 26-21 Jaguars win. Saleh never accused the Jaguars of doing anything illegal, but said after the game that his choice of words could have been better because he meant it as a compliment to Jacksonville’s preparation.
At the league meetings in Arizona on Tuesday, Saleh said that the two men have moved past the issue.
“We’re good,” Saleh said, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.com. “I know the NFL probably wants more of a story, but there’s no story. I have an appreciation for Liam. Like I said, I used the wrong word when I was trying to give him a compliment, but all that’s under the bridge. We’ve talked and put it behind us.”
Coen said that the incident has been fodder for teasing from other coaches around the league and the two men will get a pair of chances to renew their acquaintance during the 2026 season.
The Jaguars have made their call on right tackle Anton Harrison’s contract option for the 2027 season.
General Manager James Gladstone said on Monday that the team will exercise that option. The move guarantees Harrison a salary of just over $19 million for his fifth NFL season and it will also give the sides an extended window to work on a long-term extension.
“As a part of that, we’ll have deeper conversations,” Gladstone said, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times-Union.
Harrison has started all 49 regular season and playoff games he’s played since Jacksonville selected him with the 27th pick of the 2023 draft.
The NFL is struggling to balance the P.R. and legal realities of diversity in key positions with a potential political assault from those who regard the three-letter “DEI’ acronym as a four-letter word. Through it all, the results speak for themselves.
Exhibit A? The 2026 photo of the NFL’s head coaches. Exhibit B? The 2026 photo of the NFL’s General Managers.
Falcons G.M. Ian Cunningham, whose promotion from assistant G.M. in Chicago somehow didn’t result in the Bears receiving a pair of third-round compensatory picks, addressed the situation on Monday, in comments to David Brandt of the Associated Press.
“Just from my position, especially being a Black man, there’s still work to be done,” Cunningham told Brandt. “Now that I’m in this position and have this platform, I’m going to be intentional about what we do from a grassroots effort to a director level. . . . I do think it’s important to give people of all races and sexes a chance to be in a position to further their career.”
Cunningham’s comments come only days after Florida took aim at the Rooney Rule as discriminatory against white men, and in the aftermath of Steelers owner Art Rooney II acknowledging that “the environment has changed.”
The environment has changed, at the national level and in plenty of states. The law has not. And the NFL’s historical performance as it relates to the hiring of coaches and General Managers — coupled with the league’s decision more than 20 years ago to make interviews of minority candidates for the most coveted positions mandatory — shows that the longstanding legal standard has not been met.
The problem is that there has been no real accountability. And the irony is that the first governmental effort to enforce the law comes from the perspective of the demographic that has benefited from the league’s traditional hiring practices.
The league undoubtedly hopes the Florida problem will go away. That the demand made by Florida attorney general James Uthmeier to abandon the Rooney Rule as to the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers is more performative than substantive.
Whatever Uthmeier’s motivations and intentions, the NFL should do the right thing. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Stand up and say, in a clear, loud voice, “Bring it on.”
Would that be good for business? Probably not. But doing the right thing isn’t always good for business. The truest test of an organization’s true character is whether it will do the right thing when it could be bad for business.
Jaguars cornerback/wide receiver Travis Hunter is “very well ahead” of schedule in his rehab, coach Liam Coen said Monday at the NFL owners meetings.
Hunter injured the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee during an Oct. 30 practice. He did not play the rest of the season, undergoing surgery on Nov. 11.
Coen is uncertain whether Hunter will return in time to participate in the offseason program.
“I don’t know his timetable-to-return, but he’s very well ahead of where he’s supposed to be,” Coen said, via Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times Union. “I know the [doctors] and athletic trainers feel really good [about Hunter’s recovery].”
The Jaguars traded up to take Hunter second overall, and he played both ways as a rookie. He caught 28 passes for 298 yards and one touchdown in 324 offensive snaps and made 15 tackles and three pass breakups in 162 defensive snaps.
General Manager James Gladstone indicated after the season that the Jaguars would make Hunter a full-time cornerback and a part-time wide receiver next season. Coen, though, said he and Hunter have not discussed Hunter’s role for 2026.
“We haven’t really had a ton of those conversations,” Coen said. “It’s more so just working through the rehab process. I think it’s kind of an unspoken understanding of knowing that there are some depth things [at cornerback] that he can come in and help us. But the focus [of the talks] have just been about the day-to-day and, ‘How are you feeling today? How are you doing?’ and getting to see him smiling and moving around again in the facility.”
After Florida attorney James Uthmeier posted a video on Wednesday demanding that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule, the team owned by the man after whom the rule is named had no comment.
On Friday, Steelers owner Art Rooney II — the son of Dan Rooney, the namesake of the Rooney Rule — had a comment.
“There’s no question that the environment has changed in recent years,” Rooney told Kalyn Kahler of ESPN. “We do have an obligation to make sure that our policies comply with the laws, whatever the law is, and whatever the changes in law might be. We’ve got to look at that and make sure we’re in compliance. . . . That’s just the environment we’re existing in today.”
The laws haven’t changed. The attitude toward them has. No state attorney general has ever investigated the NFL for decades of questionable hiring practices when it comes to race. Now, out of the blue, a red-state attorney general is attacking the Rooney Rule as being discriminatory on the basis of race.
Rooney’s comments have relevance far beyond Florida. They explain the NFL’s tiptoeing through the DEI minefield, dumping the Accelerator program last year before bringing it back in 2026 and expanding it to include white candidates.
The NFL has tried to strike the balance between saying all the right things and doing as little as possible. Now, the league is faced with a dilemma. Paying lip service to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts has invited an attack from Florida. What the NFL does from here could invite a social-media assault from one specific location in Washington, D.C.
It also could spark an effort by a blue-state attorney general or two to pluck low-hanging fruit that has been hanging there for decades.
On Wednesday, Florida attorney general James Uthmeier demanded that the NFL suspend the Rooney Rule as to the three franchises based there: the Dolphins, Jaguars, and Buccaneers.
On Friday, the NFL issued a statement regarding Uthmeier’s correspondence.
“We are reviewing the letter,” NFL executive V.P. Jeff Miller said. “We believe our policies are consistent with the law and reflect our commitment to fairness, opportunity, and building the strongest possible teams.”
Uthmeier believes otherwise. It’s part of the current assault on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Programs meant to rectify past instances of systemic discrimination have been met with claims that those programs are discriminatory.
Obviously, the NFL’s Rooney Rule doesn’t mandate the hiring of minority coaches. The goal is to get owners to slow down, to take a look at a broader pool of candidates. Even with it, the NFL’s collection of head coaches doesn’t begin to reflect the demographics of its rosters.
The situation puts the NFL in a delicate spot. It’s possible that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue is watching, waiting, and ready to start posting social-media attacks in the wee small hours of the morning.
For now, the NFL has said something. Even if it’s not much of anything. Starting this weekend at the annual meetings, owners undoubtedly will be asked about the situation. The league presumably hopes they’ll say nothing more than, “We are reviewing the letter.”
