For the second straight year, the Jacksonville Jaguars have jumped ahead of their 29 rivals in the National Football League.

Prior to today, only one player selected in the NFL¹s draft in April had signed a contract with his NFL team. Today, the Jacksonville Jaguars reached contract agreements with five of the 10 players they selected in the April 20-21 draft. Terms of their contracts are not disclosed. The players are:

Rd. Pick Pos. Player Ht. Wt. Age College

2b 30/60 C Michael Cheever 6-3 296 22 Georgia Tech

3 2/63 DB Aaron Beasley 5-11 194 22 West Virginia

5 14/146 OT Jimmy Herndon 6-8 304 22 Houston

6a 3/170 SS John Fisher 5-10 197 22 Missouri Western

7a 18/227 WR Clarence Jones 6-0 184 23 Tennessee State

³Once again, this shows our commitment to signing our players early with fair contracts so that they can report on time and concentrate all of their efforts on making the Jacksonville Jaguars a better football team,² said Michael Huyghue, senior vice president of football operations. ³All five of these players will compete for jobs this summer as we prepare for our second season. We look forward to getting the other half of our draft class signed in the not-too-distant future.²

Last year, on June 1, the Jaguars signed their entire 1995 draft class on the same day, the first time that has been done in NFL history.

The five players, as well as the five unsigned draft choices, will attend the Jaguars¹ pre-camp, which will be held June 3-7 at Jacksonville Municipal Stadium.

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