The Jacksonville Jaguars\u2019 first trade of the 2026 offseason is officially in the books!<\/p>\n
The Jaguars and Atlanta Falcons have exchanged third-year defensive tackles: Ruke Orhorhoro (Oh-row-row-row), the 35th overall pick in 2024, is now headed to Duval; Maason Smith, the 48th pick in the same draft class, is en route to the ATL.<\/p>\n
Over the past two years, Smith totaled 32 tackles and 3 sacks across 24 regular season games (7 starts). Orhorhoro accrued 36 tackles and 3.5 sacks over 25 games (8 starts).<\/p>\n
Off rip, this looks like a win for Jacksonville. Smith picked up a calf injury last offseason that he didn\u2019t seem to ever fully recover from, as the team made him a healthy scratch multiple times in 2025 in favor of Matt Dickerson (who was re-signed earlier this offseason). Smith never seemed like a clean fit for the Jaguars\u2019 new regime. His roster spot in 2026 was hardly a guarantee.<\/p>\n
For general manager James Gladstone to receive any compensation out of the former Trent Baalke project is good stuff. The fact that the return is a cost-controlled, pass-rushing defensive tackle is even better.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars also waived offensive lineman Cooper Hodges, who attended nearby Baker County High School and was drafted in the seventh round in 2023.<\/p>\n
After missing his full rookie campaign due to a dislocated right kneecap, Hodges played 9 straight games (including 1 start) in 2024 before unfortunately going down again, this time due to a significant right knee injury that required a cart and an air cast. Last June, the Appalachian State product was waived following a failed physical and reverted to the Reserve\/Physically Unable to Perform list. Wishing nothing but the best to Cooper!<\/p>\n
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Jacksonville Jaguars\u2019 first trade of the 2026 offseason is officially in the books! The Jaguars and Atlanta…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":868663,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[7,212,125,2409,2406,2407,2401,213,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-868662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville-jaguars","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-jacksonville","10":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","11":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars-depth-chart","12":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars-news","13":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars-roster","14":"tag-jacksonvillejaguars","15":"tag-jaguars","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116422099842870520","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868662","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=868662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/868662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/868663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=868662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=868662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=868662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}