By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

The Jacksonville Jaguars recently hired Los Angeles Rams director of scouting James Gladstone as their next general manager.

Gladstone, 34, becomes the NFL’s youngest GM, and joins the Jaguars after nine seasons with the Rams.

First hired as a senior assistant  in 2016, Gladstone became their  player personnel coordinator, director of scouting strategy, and director of special projects before becoming director of scouting in 2021.

“It’s my honor to introduce James Gladstone as the new general manager of the Jacksonville Jaguars,” Claims Jaguars owner Shad Khan.

Gladstone’s job offer is about one month after the Jag’s fired Trent Baalke after four unsuccessful seasons.

Jacksonville also enters the 2025 season with new head coach Liam Coen, and a new executive vice president of football operations Tony Boselli (a franchise great) joining the front office earlier this month.

The Jaguars ended the 2024 season at 4-13 and third in the AFC South. Jacksonville has the No. 5 pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

In 2019, the Rams began a quiet overhaul of many of their draft and scouting processes under Les Snead and then-executive Brad Holmes.

When Holmes got the Detroit Lions job in 2021, Gladstone ascended to his top role within the department and was generally thought of as Snead’s right hand in Los Angeles.

Gladstone took on the overhaul, and he led the Rams into advanced processes by collaborating with Snead, Sean McVay, and other analysts to blend McVay’s on-field vision with the identification of middle- and late-round draft picks. At that time the Rams were dependent on these mid-to-late bloomers because they did not have  first-round picks.

Gladstone ran the Rams’ scouting and draft meetings year-round but also put a scout’s eye on prospects himself and evaluated each class alongside the remote senior scouts.

Gladstone, Jake Temme and Nicole Blake evolved the Rams’ internal scouting system, called JAARS, into a blend of analytics modeling, scouting intel, reporting, filings, medical and psychological profiles (for current and prospective players), and coaching analysis and intel to connect every piece of the Rams’ building together.

After the picks-for-players model and subsequent Super Bowl-winning season in 2021, the Rams imploded from an organization standpoint in 2022. They opted to take on a record amount of dead money while shedding veteran players and high dollar contracts.

With Gladstone as scouting director, they drafted 14 rookies and brought in 26 undrafted free agents, and five of them became starters (including star receiver Puka Nacua, and Defensive Rookie of the Year finalists Kobie Turner and Byron Young).

In 2024, the first season since 2016 that the Rams had a first-round pick, the 10-member class also featured five starters including Defensive Rookie of the Year Jared Verse and finalist Braden Fiske.

The Jags start the season with a new coach, a new GM, and a new vice president of football operations.

Let’s hope this overhaul in the front office will create wins on the field.