Mike Mularkey defended -- sort of -- his former team’s decision not to select Russell Wilson in the third round, as the Jaguars chose instead to take punter Bryan Anger.
Jaguars never considered drafting Russell Wilson
Mike Mularkey said his team never thought about Russell Wilson while taking punter Bryan Anger in the third round, expressing regret over misjudging the Seahawks’ quarterback.
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Mularkey explained while talking to Pro Football Talk that when his team selected, they felt they had a strong future quarterback in Blaine Gabbert and a veteran backup in Chad Henne, so quarterback wasn’t really an option. And Anger can be one of the best punters of all time, in Mularkey’s eyes. But looking back at Wilson, Mularkey counts himself among those who made a mistake analyzing Wilson’s skills after a great rookie season with the Seahawks.
“It’s easy now after the fact based on what Russell Wilson did,” Mularkey said. “There’s a lot of teams sitting there like we were wishing we had made that pick, but at the time, it really wasn’t as big a decision as you think it was. ”
Mularkey, who only coached the Jaguars for one season before being fired, praised Wilson and wasn’t ecstatic about Gabbert, who improved in his sophomore season before an injury forced Henne into a starting role.
“We felt like Blaine was going to be the quarterback,” Mularkey said of the team’s 2011 first-round pick. “Forecasting out whether he’s going to be one of those franchise quarterbacks? I can’t do that.”
In a somewhat weird moment, Mularkey said that Gabbert, who was picked the year before he took over, wasn’t drafted to be the Jaguars’ starter right away, which is strange considering the team traded up to the No. 10 spot to take him. Not necessarily as strange a decision as taking Anger in the third round, but considering Mularkey’s lukewarm appraisal of Gabbert, strange nonetheless.
Pro Football Talk wrote that the Panthers were interested in Wilson as a potential backup to Cam Newton.
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