Here is the seventh of a 10-part series breaking down the Jacksonville Jaguars' free agency needs, position by position:
Defensive tackle
Who is on the roster: Ziggy Hood, Abry Jones, Sen'Derrick Marks, and Roy Miller.
Players scheduled to become free agents on March 10: None.
Analysis: Defensive tackle is one of the strongest position groups on the team, and Marks was the Jaguars’ best player in 2014. He led the team with 8.5 sacks (second among all interior linemen) and also had a team-high 16 quarterback hurries. Marks’ 15 tackles for loss was third among defensive tackles (Ndamukong Suh had 23 and Aaron Donald had 16). However, Marks suffered a torn right ACL in the season finale and that has his availability for the beginning of the 2015 season in question. Miller (31 tackles, four tackles for loss) played solidly beside Marks until a late-season knee injury that also required offseason surgery. He is expected to be ready for training camp. Hood, a free-agent signee last March, and Jones were good enough to allow the Jaguars to decrease the amount of workload for Marks and Miller, which was a problem in 2013. The Jaguars are intrigued by Jones’ potential. He had 39 tackles, three sacks, three quarterback hurries, and one forced fumble. He’s young (23) and showed significant improvement from 2013 to 2014. If that continues, he will ease the Jaguars’ mind about Marks’ status early in the season.
NFL free agents of interest: Suh is the best defensive player available, and is the kind of player who can turn a franchise around. However, it’s going to take a lot of money (think $100 million) for any team to sign him. The Jaguars will at least investigate the possibility of bringing him to Jacksonville. Otherwise, this won’t be a priority position in free agency, even if the team believes Marks won’t be ready for the start of the season.
