March 3, 2026, 8:53 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
If the early portion of the 2026 NFL draft were to play out in an ideal fashion for the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>, what would have to happen?<\/p>\n Ryan Smith of Pro Football Focus<\/a> recently answered that question. The goal for the Jaguars<\/a>, as Smith noted, should be to add depth along the interior defensive line.<\/p>\n Defensive tackle is one of the Jaguars’ biggest positions of need this offseason. Along with needing to add depth and competition, Jacksonville needs more pass-rush juice from this unit as well.<\/p>\n So how should the Jaguars hope to address this need? If you ask Smith, it’s landing Georgia defensive tackle Christen Miller.<\/p>\n “Christen Miller may not make it to the Jaguars in the second round but would be an ideal landing spot if he fell to them as a 6-foot-4, 310 pound defensive tackle that was elite when defending the run in 2025 (90.2 PFF run-defense grade) while also showing the ability to rush the passer at a high level with a 11.3 pass-rush win rate from the interior,” Smith wrote.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n Miller has played 1,031 defensive snaps over the last three years. Between the 2024 and 2025 seasons, he has totaled 38 pressures and one sack, lining up mostly in the B-gap, according to PFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n Miller has made a big impact in the run game and has been one of PFF’s highest graded run defenders at the defensive tackle position in each of the last two seasons.<\/p>\n “Miller is an even-front nose tackle who can rattle pads and gain early advantages at the point of attack. He has good stack-and-shed against single blocks but lacks the prototypical mass of a space-eater,” wrote NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein.<\/a><\/p>\n As Smith mentions, Miller may not be available when the Jaguars are picking. He is the fifth-ranked defensive tackle on Mel Kiper’s<\/a> big board. Many recent mock drafts<\/a> have Miller going in the latter portion of Round 1.<\/p>\n The Jaguars boasted the top run defense unit in the NFL last season, but as already mentioned, need a more steady pass rush presence from this unit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 3, 2026, 8:53 p.m. ET If the early portion of the 2026 NFL draft were to play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":676259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[95878,7699,7,212,125,2401,213,6,31186,95933,95882,96058,95936,95896,95888,95895,95899,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-790544","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville-jaguars","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","13":"tag-jacksonvillejaguars","14":"tag-jaguars","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-sstssportsnfljaguars","17":"tag-sstsnjaguars","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagjacksonville","20":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","21":"tag-tagnational-sports","22":"tag-tagnfl","23":"tag-tagnfl-hub","24":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116168825525351922","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/676259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}