Jacksonville Jaguars rookie guard Emmanuel Pregnon is exactly as head coach Liam Coen described him: a player with a lot of mass.
Well, that’s not quite what Coen said after the team selected Pregnon with the 88th-overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, but that’s essentially what the 6-foot-5, 318-pound guard out of Oregon is, a massive human who can move other massive humans. Pregnon, as of late April, is Jacksonville’s sixth-largest player by weight.
As of today, if the team inserted Pregnon into the starting lineup on the offensive line, excluding 6-foot-7, 325-pound tackle Walker Little, he’d be the largest human in the lineup. Second-year guard/tackle Wyatt Milum is similar at 6-foot-6, 317 pounds, as listed on the team’s official roster.
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“Obviously a first-team All-American, type of player that adds mass inside. That’s something that we’ve been continuously evaluating is getting bigger, faster, stronger and tougher. That’s something that he does for us,” Coen explained sooner after the team selected him after the second day of the draft.
Pregnon pick gives Jaguars consensus board win
The Jaguars do not care about the online world’s consensus big board. The public big board is an aggregate of rankings from over 130 draft analysts. The franchise has an in-house consensus board and that’s what they’ll use until they’re told not to come into work anymore.
“I listen to what’s being said about players in a very real way. I care about it. I listen to those in this building and the people that we invited into this building and what their perspective is on these players,” Jaguars general manager James Gladstone said recently on the Ozone podcast, hosted by Jaguars senior writer John Oehser.
“We build consensus internally and that is leveraged at every pick point. Our wisdom of the collective is how we phrase it, and it is what guides our decision making.”
Gladstone went on to explain that outside consensus boards and mock drafts don’t all necessarily take into consideration the exact scheme or situations the player is walking into.
“Talent is one thing, but really the intangible elements, the situation, the timing of a player’s arrival, those things are going to play a big part into what the rest of their career is going to look like, and their impact on the football field or to a team and an organization,” Gladstone added.
With that said, while the outside public wasn’t high on Jacksonville’s draft, particularly starting with 56th-overall pick, tight end Nate Boerkircher, they were very high on this pick.
That’s because Pregnon ranked 41st on the consensus board. Gladstone remarked, too, that there was surprise that the guard lasted as long as he did into the third round. That was part of the decision.
“It wasn’t necessarily something we would have projected in advance,” he said.
Pregnon gives Jaguars flexibility, a look into the future
Jacksonville picking an offensive lineman in this year’s draft was not a surprise. The team entered the event with 11 selections, one of those had to be on the offensive line considering the team’s philosophy.
Last year, Gladstone made the point of emphasizing the team’s need to “set the dish” for quarterback Trevor Lawrence, meaning the team needed to reinforce the inside of their offensive line. They did so by signing center Robert Hainsey and guard/tackle Patrick Mekari, while drafting Milum and seventh-round center Jonah Monheim.
Pregnon is the next step in that evolution to transform the team’s offensive line to fit more within Coen’s scheme.
The team’s philosophy to be always ready with depth on the roster, particularly on the OL, is because of the situation Gladstone and Coen went through in 2022 in Los Angeles with the Rams. That year, the team had 12-d different starting combinations in their first 13 games. Four of the team’s five projected starters missed at least four games, with three missing over half the season.
“We’re never going to put ourselves in a position to not have depth up front and to not have great competition, depth,” Coen said in reference to what Pregnon allows the team to do.
Emmanuel Pregnon #75 of the Oregon Ducks lines up against the Washington Huskies at Husky Stadium on November 29, 2025 in Seattle, Washington.
“I know in the last two years, getting two interior linemen with a little bit of flex that are 320, 315 plus [pounds] that have that ass and mass that we’re looking for, that’s helpful to the cause,” he added.
Pregnon is the embodiment of that to go along with his penchant for blocking. Pregnon earned an 88.4 overall Pro Football Focus grade, ranking second among 686 qualified guards. As a pass protector, allowing just one sack and five pressures in 2025, Pregnon ranked seventh on 471 pass-blocking snaps.
His run blocking reps were similar, performing elite in zone schemes (98th percentile). He was flagged just once during the regular season. His athleticism is intriguing, too. He can move.
During the 2026 NFL Draft cycle, Pregnon graded out with an elite explosion grade after jumping 35 inches in the vertical leap and 9-feet-3-inches in the broad jump. He posted good scores for speed, agility and size, according to MathBomb’s Relative Athletic Score (RAS). He graded out with a 9.15 RAS.
Pregnon was picked 88th-overall pick, but projects much higher. If his post-draft comments are anything to believe, he’s going to be a good player in Jacksonville. He’s just what they want.
“I would say a tireless work ethic, a relentless mentality, just an absolute dog mentality. Willing and ready to do whatever it takes to help the team win and succeed and just honestly dominate because that’s the type of player I feel like I am is a dominator,” Pregnon said.
“I impose my will on others, whether they like it or not, and that’s what I’m going be there to do.”
Demetrius Harvey is the Jacksonville Jaguars reporter for the Florida Times-Union. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @Demetrius82 or on Bluesky at Demetrius.
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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Emmanuel Pregnon could be steal of the draft for Jacksonville Jaguars