JACKSONVILLE – Senior writer John Oehser wraps up the 2025 NFL Annual Meeting at The Breakers Palm Beach this week …

1. "Great feel." Los Angeles Rams Head Coach Sean McVay, who praised Jaguars Head Coach Liam Coen this week during the league meetings, had similar praise for Jaguars General Manager James Gladstone. "He has great feel for the game," McVay said of Gladstone, who was hired as the Jaguars' general manager in late February after spending his first nine seasons in the Rams' front office. Gladstone served the Rams' director of scouting strategy the past three seasons, collaborating with General Manager Les Snead on strategic planning and overseeing the day-to-day scouting process. "James earned the right to have the platform to run a lot of the different things as it related to the draft," McVay said, adding of Gladstone: "He has incredible emotional intelligence as well. There's a calm demeanor and a clarity with which he communicates. He's able to connect. When I talked to [Jaguars Executive Vice President of Football Operations] Tony Boselli when he was leading the search and he was going through all that there were looking for in a general manager candidate I said, 'I wish I could tell you you're not explaining James Gladstone to a T, but you are.' We'll miss him. He'll do a great job there."
2. Unique vision. While Gladstone has been lauded often for high-end communication skills, McVay this week also praised him as a talent evaluator – and for his ability to fit talent into scheme and team approach. "He has a great ability to be able to watch players," McVay said, adding that among Gladstone's traits he most admired is "how authentic and how intentional he was about trying to see the game through the same lens as us as coaches while also being honest about his opinions." McVay added, "He was a guy that understood the landscape of the league. He obviously had a great feel for the college landscape and being able to project where we were headed offensively, defensively and in the kicking game. Where did we need to go in our team build to identify players throughout the draft?"
3. Coen on Gladstone*.* Coen, too, discussed Gladstone this week at the league meetings and noted that while they "weren't homies" when working together at the Rams, they have "spent almost every waking minute together" since Gladstone's February hiring. "He's a coach's kid, so he wants to do things that way, which I really appreciate," Coen said. "It's really just been us together with the help of some others as well that have been part of this process. It's so easy to talk to him." Coen discussed Gladstone's approach of preparing for the draft by "breaking players down in buckets" and lauded the general manager's ability to communicate complex ideas in understandable fashion. "He breaks things down to such an elite level of simplicity for me because he's a lot smarter than I am," Coen said. "He has been able to break down the draft, understand it as well as anybody I've heard have these conversations. He's been able to map things out for me to be able to understand at a high level. It's been so organized the way he has things. He's like a call sheet, like an offensive or defensive coach's call sheet, not your typical draft board. It's easier for me to read and understand, which I think is really cool."
4. Strange days. If the Jaguars' tight-end room is a place of transition this offseason, Coen is optimistic about what's staying the same. Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange, a second-round selection in the 2023 NFL Draft, caught 40 passes for 411 yards and two touchdowns in 2024 – and Coen said the third-year veteran from Penn State "plays the game the right way. I love the way he competes through the whistle. He does it through the whistle, plays with an edge, he's got some twitch, he's strong, he'll get his hands on you in the blocking. I really appreciate it. He'll elevate just by alone getting more reps, and getting him on the field is a good thing for us. You can tell he's hungry, wants to continue to get better, and he showed some really nice things last year, especially after the catch doing some nice things of breaking tackles and getting extra yards."