The Jacksonville Jaguars Will Trade Travis Etienne to the Kansas City Chiefs

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With the NFL offseason comes predictions and bold takes. That specifically happens with trades that could happen before the season or the deadline. With that in mind, Travis Etienne becomes an intriguing trade option, and if he is traded, it will be to the Kansas City Chiefs.

This may be a bit strange considering the Chiefs have Isiah Pacheco as their lead back, but it’s not out of the realm of possibilities for Kansas City to be looking for more out of their running back room. Pacheco has been good with back-to-back seasons with over 1,000 yards rushing and 16 rushing touchdowns. Over that, he’s done so in 493 carries, and has evolved into the lead back as Clyde Edwards-Helaire hasn’t been able to truly help the running back room and provide Pacheco with a relief back.

To keep Pacheco fresh for the future and to continue having a reliable back, it would be ideal to trade for Etienne. With Etienne, he brings a stable presence in the run game after averaging 4.4 yards per attempt over two seasons for a total of 2,299 yards and 17 touchdowns. Etienne brings the elusive ability to the offense as he has created 1,546 yards after contact. Not to mention, Etienne brings a new element to the Chiefs as Pacheco isn’t necessarily the best pass catching back, Etienne, on the other hand, has the ability as that was his specialty coming out of Clemson and has been utilized in the NFL with him accumulating 822 yards with an average of 9.7 yards after the catch. That’s on a limited scale too as the Jacksonville Jaguars haven’t utilized him in the pass game to the best of their ability.

That’s a factor in this trade. While Etienne was a teammate of Trevor Lawrence’s in college, it’s clear that Etienne hasn’t fully fit the mold of Doug Pederson’s scheme as Tank Bigsby took away snaps from Etienne last season. With the Jaguars in a weird state where they have more deficiencies in talent than it may look and if they’re committed to Lawrence, they need to surround him with better talent and one of the best players that they could trade would be Etienne, especially with an upcoming contract.

The Jaguars would get value out of Etienne and still have their run game stable with Bigsby. For the Chiefs, they give Patrick Mahomes another weapon in the receiving game and create a true running back duo to threaten defenses.