With hindsight and their grading system as their guide, Pro Football Focus went back to 2007 and redrafted the first round. So, who did the Jacksonville Jaguars come away with this time?
Originally, in that draft, the Jaguars held the 17th overall pick but traded down to pick No. 21 in a swap with Denver. With that 21st pick, the Jaguars picked safety Reggie Nelson.
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In this redraft, however, no draft day trades were made, so PFF had the Jaguars picking at 17th overall still, and with that selection, Jacksonville picked Georgia edge rusher Charles Johnson, who was originally taken by Carolina in the third round.
“Johnson didn’t get to play much in his rookie season, but he went on to become one of the NFL’s better pass rushers over the next decade,” wrote PFF. “From 2008 to 2016, Johnson earned an elite 90.2 PFF pass-rush grade. He was a crucial part of the defensive turnaround in Carolina at the time.”
Johnson would end up playing 11 seasons and spent all of them with Carolina. He appeared in 143 games, which included 114 starts. From 2010 through 2014, Johnson recorded at least 8.5 sacks each of those seasons, and he eclipsed 11.0 sacks three times during that span.
Along with his sack production, Johnson also recorded the fourth-most quarterback pressures in 2010, the sixth-most in 2012, and the third-most pressure in 2014.
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Nelson would end up playing 12 NFL seasons, which included appearing in 181 games and making 164 starts. He finished his career with 38 interceptions and 101 pass breakups. However, only three of those seasons came with the Jaguars.
In PFF’s redraft, Nelson went 10th overall to the Houston Texans.
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: Jacksonville Jaguars pick DE Charles Johnson in PFF’s 2007 NFL redraft