In Season 7 of 'The Hunt,' Jacksonville Jaguars unveil their ambitious offseason strategy, leveraging advanced analytics and open dialogue to reload for a deeper playoff run.
The Jacksonville Jaguars dove straight into planning, laying out the blueprint for a successful offseason and searching for ways to improve from last year's 13-4 campaign.
Jacksonville dropped the first episode of Season 7 of "The Hunt," and it opens with scenes following the team's loss to the Buffalo Bills in the first round of last season's playoffs.
In the final team meeting in January, head coach Liam Coen told his men the defeat left a bad taste, and they will use it as fuel for the offseason.
"We don't want to feel like this again," Coen said.
But standing in front of them in the team's auditorium, Coen pressed them.
"When do you learn? Through adversity, through hard times, through the bad. That's when we learn about ourselves," he said. "We get the opportunity to reflect, come back and reload."
Jacksonville's first plan of attack in the offseason was establishing Blackwater, its internal scouting system. Jake Temme, the senior vice president of football analytics, created the system to evaluate players and encourage open-ended conversations among the staff.
Body measurements, in-depth stats and video, player notes, and many other user-friendly features are available for staff to do research in Blackwater.
"The human brain can't comprehend all the stuff that's going in there," Temme said. "We need some version of being able to synthesize, analyze, come back with, 'Hey, this is what's important' throughout all the noise."
As the staff browses various player profiles, they reconvene to share their takeaways and have an open discussion, excluding general manager James Gladstone's opinion.
Temme said it becomes an echo room when Gladstone interjects, and it becomes hard for the room to disagree with him. Gladstone's perspective holds value, but the goal is to value the collective ideas and brainstorming of everyone in the room.
As Jacksonville heads into Year 2 with Coen as coach and Gladstone as general manager, Coen said no year is more important than the second.
"Let's be honest, there's been a lot of one-hit wonders," Coen said. "And so, what are we doing to separate ourselves to make sure that never happens?"
Jacksonville is building off the conversations the staff has had about free agency, the draft, and trade opportunities.
Gladstone said stacking those discussions together allows the team to see the full picture.
Compensatory picks are part of the Jaguars' arsenal to improve heading into the second year of the Coen-Gladstone era.
"It allows us the luxury of being involved in potential trade talks over the course of this offseason and into training camp and all the way up until the deadline next fall," Gladstone said.
Trip MacCracken, the director of player finance, is another part of Jacksonville's offseason blueprint. He negotiates with players' agents, discussing contract terms that benefit the player and the team.
MacCracken said he isn't focused on one year, but the next two to four years. He keeps track of the salary cap, and free agents leaving or signing with Jacksonville to track how many compensatory picks the team will receive.
Chris Rodriguez Jr.’s two-year, $10 million contract, signed on March 11, was negotiated by MacCracken and Rodriguez's agent.
"With Chris in particular, it was a relatively rapid-fire conclusion and agreement we were able to strike over the first hour that the new league year began," Gladstone said.
The Jaguars, motivated by their early playoff exit, laid out an in-depth blueprint for an offseason focused on improvement.
Gladstone, Coen and the entire staff are moving together to develop a roster capable of making a deep postseason run next year.
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