(Photo by Tom Pidgeon/Getty Images)
On the first day of the 2003 NFL Draft, as the Minnesota Vikings' time with the seventh overall pick was running out, the Jaguars had filled out a draft card and were prepared to go on the clock.
Three, two, one—done. Jacksonville rushed the card up to the podium, skipping ahead of Minnesota for the seventh pick.
The player they were mischievously cutting in line to claim, of course, was Marshall quarterback Byron Leftwich. For all their haste, however, Leftwich was hardly the unanimous choice in Jacksonville's war room.
He had the support of James "Shack" Harris, the Jaguars' first-year general manager who had been a Pro Bowl quarterback in the 1970s. Sources close to the team say that Harris saw himself in Leftwich and made the pick against opposition from new head coach Jack Del Rio.
Del Rio, who had transformed the league's worst defense into its second-best during his two years as defensive coordinator for the Carolina Panthers, had his eye on Arizona State defensive end Terrell Suggs.
Fast-forward to the present—going past three seasons of mediocre passing offense in Jacksonville, Leftwich's release days before the Jaguars' first regular season game in 2007, and 53 sacks and three Pro Bowl appearances by Suggs—and hindsight seems to have validated Del Rio. Paying more for Leftwich than Suggs, as the Jaguars chose to do in 2003, would be laughable now.
Well, suppose Jacksonville hadn't.
Suppose they rushed a draft card up to the podium in that same situation in 2003—Minnesota was supposedly trading the pick to Baltimore—but it had Suggs' name on it. Suppose the Jaguars and Ravens were scrambling for that spot to take Suggs, not Leftwich. Suppose Del Rio had his way.
What would have changed for the Jaguars?
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