Jaguars ‘earn’ top overall selection for April’s NFL draft

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jacksonville Jaguars’ 3-14 record this season earned them the top spot in April’s NFL draft, the second consecutive year they will pick first.

The tentative order of the first round, not including teams in the playoffs, was announced Monday by the NFL.

“I mean, it’s bittersweet,” Jaguars defensive end Dawuane Smoot said following the team’s 26-11 victory over Indianapolis in the season finale. “We won. It’s good. But at the same time, we’re still rebuilding, so that’s going to be huge going forward, whatever we end up doing with it. I trust the front office, and I feel like we’re going to be able to turn this around really soon.”

Playoff results will determine where the 14 postseason teams will select. For example, the winner of the Super Bowl picks last and the loser selects next to last in all rounds, regardless of the record of the clubs in the regular season. Losers of the conference championship games choose 29th and 30th in all rounds, according to the reverse order of their standing. Same process for losers in the divisional round, who will select 25th through 28th, and losers of wild-card games, who will pick 19th through 24th.

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In the case of ties, earlier slots go to teams that faced the lowest aggregate of won-loss records overall, with other tiebreakers potentially in play.

The current order for non-playoff clubs:

Jacksonville (3-14)

Detroit (3-13-1)

Houston (4-13)

New York Jets (4-13)

New York Giants (4-13)

Carolina (5-12)

Chicago (6-11, traded to New York Giants)

Atlanta (7-10)

Denver (7-10)

Seattle (7-10, traded to New York Jets)

Washington (7-10)