CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland Browns and NFL fans, it’s time for you to say who all of the teams should pick in the first round of the draft on April 26.

Through April 22, via polls, we’re asking you every day to make first-round picks for each of two teams. The polls go up on cleveland.com at approximate 12-hour intervals, around 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. each day. We list 10 prospects for you to pick from in each poll. On April 23-24, you’ll be asked to make the picks for each of three teams (at approximate eight-hour intervals) both days, completing the 32-pick first round.

Here’s who the fans have selected so far:

1. Indianapolis Colts: Andrew Luck, QB, Stanford

2. Washington Redskins: Robert Griffin III, QB, Baylor

3: Minnesota Vikings: Matt Kalil, OT, Southern Cal

4. Cleveland Browns: Trent Richardson, RB, Alabama

5. Tampa Bay Buccaneeers: Morris Claiborne, CB, Louisiana State

6. St. Louis Rams: Justin Blackmon, WR, Oklahoma State

The seventh pick in the first round of the draft belongs to the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Jaguars finished the 2011 season with a 5-11 record.

The Jaguars’ primary needs include wide receiver, offensive tackle, defensive end and outside linebacker.

Continue to check The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com for Browns and NFL coverage.

Jacksonville Jaguars on the clock: Who should they draft with the seventh pick in the first round?

Read More: Ryan Tannehill (QB – Texas A&M), Melvin Ingram (DE – South Carolina), Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars are one of the tougher teams to pick for in mock drafts, because they’re a team that could go a handful of different was once their pick rolls around based on how the top six teams draft. One area of concern for the Jaguars is at the defensive end position and Don Banks of SI.com gives them a pass rusher in his latest NFL Mock Draft.

7 – Jacksonville Jaguars – Melvin Ingram, DE, South Carolina

I still think the Jaguars might have a trade offer for their spot to weigh, with No. 8 Miami seemingly poised to select Texas A&M quarterback Ryan Tannehill if no one beats them to the punch. No. 11 Kansas City makes some sense, with the rookie providing some competition for less-than-entrenched Chiefs starter Matt Cassel.

As Banks notes, the Jaguars are a team who have made it known publicly they’re willing to listen to offers to move out of the No. 7 overall pick. There is some concern of how well Ingram fits as a 4-3 defensive end in the NFL, but he’s certainly a player the Jaguars could use on their defense.

For more on the Jacksonville Jaguars visit SB Nation’s Jaguars blog Big Cat Country. For more on the NFL Draft, visit SB Nation’s Mocking The Draft.

Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blaine Gabbert reviewed each of his plays from last season, dissecting clips from what he called an “outsider’s point of view.”

As it turned out, his opinion was fairly similar to everyone else’s.

Gabbert realizes he needs to make progress.

“There’s always a bunch of things you’d like to do differently,” Gabbert said Monday, the first day of the team’s offseason program. “You’re going to make mistakes throughout the season. You just have to try to limit those mistakes.”

Gabbert’s mistakes were analyzed and scrutinized like no others in the organization.

He got few breaks for being the youngest quarterback in the NFL, for having arguably the league’s worst receiving corps or for getting thrown into the starting role two weeks into the regular season.

Instead, he got the brunt of the blame for a 5-11 season that included a lame-duck coaching staff and a strange quarterback change days before the opener.

“Some of the criticism was pretty intense,” Gabbert said. “You’re always going to get criticized; people need something to talk about. When the coaches say I’m doing fine, I trust their opinion because that’s the only one that matters. You can’t worry about what everybody is saying about your game. You’ve just got to focus on the things that you can control and the things you can improve on.”

Gabbert and the Jaguars have plenty of room for improvement.

The Jaguars ranked last in the NFL in total offense in 2011, scoring 14 or fewer points in 10 games. Gabbert completed 50.8 percent of his passes for 2,214 yards, with 12 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, and was sacked a whopping 40 times.

Maybe more troubling for the former Missouri standout is that fellow rookies Cam Newton (Carolina) and Andy Dalton (Cincinnati) looked better than Gabbert did last season.

But key people inside Jacksonville’s football facility – owner Shad Khan, general manager Gene Smith and coach Mike Mularkey – insist Gabbert is their guy for now and for the future.

“I’m excited about the opportunity to work with him,” Mularkey said. “I’d like to give him a chance with some of the things we’re going to hopefully help him do. We feel like we can help him develop his talents. There’s a lot that he does very well and we just need to get that to be a consistent thing.”

The Jaguars believe a full offseason and a revamped receiving corps will work wonders for Gabbert.

The team signed former Dallas Cowboys receiver Laurent Robinson in free agency and is expected to add another wideout early in the NFL draft.

Gabbert welcomed the latest addition.

“We added another weapon to this offense, another big target to make plays for us,” he said. “That’s crucial. You need people on the outside to make plays, and he had a great year last year in Dallas, scored a lot of touchdowns, and he’s looking to do that again this year for us.”

After a tumultuous rookie season in which his head coach was fired and the team was sold, Gabbert left Jacksonville shortly after the season. He returned early last month and spent the last three weeks working out in Pensacola. He stayed in contact with Mularkey, and for good reason.

The Jaguars signed former Miami Dolphins starter Chad Henne to be Gabbert’s backup. The move raised eyebrows, especially when Mularkey said Henne would compete for the starting job.

“I trust Gene Smith and Mike Mularkey’s word that if they say I’m the starting quarterback, then I’m the starting quarterback,” Gabbert said. “That’s good enough for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have to go out there and work hard and compete every day. This business is competitive. You have to perform on a daily basis. That’s how it should be and that’s how it will be.”

The Jaguars tried to shake up the quarterback situation even more by trying to trade for former Florida star Tim Tebow. Jacksonville looked like it was going to swoop in and land Tebow, but he ended up with the New York Jets.

“There was so much talk going around that you didn’t know what was the truth,” Gabbert said. “It’s not really worth stressing out over. At the end of the day, you can’t control it one way or another.”

The thing Gabbert can control now is getting better.

“My expectations are definitely higher this year,” Gabbert said. “I have a full offseason ahead of me and a great coaching staff. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together.”

Gabbert and the rest of the Jaguars began their offseason program on Monday. They will begin work on the field April 17 in the first veterans camp under head coach Mike Mularkey.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Blaine Gabbert reviewed each of his plays from last season, dissecting clips from what he called an ”outsider’s point of view.”

As it turned out, his opinion was fairly similar to everyone else’s.

Gabbert realizes he needs to make progress.

”There’s always a bunch of things you’d like to do differently,” Gabbert said Monday, the first day of the team’s offseason program. ”You’re going to make mistakes throughout the season. You just have to try to limit those mistakes.”

Gabbert’s mistakes were analyzed and scrutinized like no others in the organization.

He got few breaks for being the youngest quarterback in the NFL, for having arguably the league’s worst receiving corps or for getting thrown into the starting role two weeks into the regular season.

Instead, he got the brunt of the blame for a 5-11 season that included a lame-duck coaching staff and a strange quarterback change days before the opener.

”Some of the criticism was pretty intense,” Gabbert said. ”You’re always going to get criticized; people need something to talk about. When the coaches say I’m doing fine, I trust their opinion because that’s the only one that matters. You can’t worry about what everybody is saying about your game. You’ve just got to focus on the things that you can control and the things you can improve on.”

Gabbert and the Jaguars have plenty of room for improvement.

The Jaguars ranked last in the NFL in total offense in 2011, scoring 14 or fewer points in 10 games. Gabbert completed 50.8 percent of his passes for 2,214 yards, with 12 touchdowns and 11 interceptions, and was sacked a whopping 40 times.

Maybe more troubling for the former Missouri standout is that fellow rookies Cam Newton (Carolina) and Andy Dalton (Cincinnati) looked better than Gabbert did last season.

But key people inside Jacksonville’s football facility – owner Shad Khan, general manager Gene Smith and coach Mike Mularkey – insist Gabbert is their guy for now and for the future.

”I’m excited about the opportunity to work with him,” Mularkey said. ”I’d like to give him a chance with some of the things we’re going to hopefully help him do. We feel like we can help him develop his talents. There’s a lot that he does very well and we just need to get that to be a consistent thing.”

The Jaguars believe a full offseason and a revamped receiving corps will work wonders for Gabbert.

The team signed former Dallas Cowboys receiver Laurent Robinson in free agency and is expected to add another wideout early in the NFL draft.

Gabbert welcomed the latest addition.

”We added another weapon to this offense, another big target to make plays for us,” he said. ”That’s crucial. You need people on the outside to make plays, and he had a great year last year in Dallas, scored a lot of touchdowns, and he’s looking to do that again this year for us.”

After a tumultuous rookie season in which his head coach was fired and the team was sold, Gabbert left Jacksonville shortly after the season. He returned early last month and spent the last three weeks working out in Pensacola. He stayed in contact with Mularkey, and for good reason.

The Jaguars signed former Miami Dolphins starter Chad Henne to be Gabbert’s backup. The move raised eyebrows, especially when Mularkey said Henne would compete for the starting job.

”I trust Gene Smith and Mike Mularkey’s word that if they say I’m the starting quarterback, then I’m the starting quarterback,” Gabbert said. ”That’s good enough for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have to go out there and work hard and compete every day. This business is competitive. You have to perform on a daily basis. That’s how it should be and that’s how it will be.”

The Jaguars tried to shake up the quarterback situation even more by trying to trade for former Florida star Tim Tebow. Jacksonville looked like it was going to swoop in and land Tebow, but he ended up with the New York Jets.

”There was so much talk going around that you didn’t know what was the truth,” Gabbert said. ”It’s not really worth stressing out over. At the end of the day, you can’t control it one way or another.”

The thing Gabbert can control now is getting better.

”My expectations are definitely higher this year,” Gabbert said. ”I have a full offseason ahead of me and a great coaching staff. The pieces of the puzzle are coming together.”

Jacksonville, Fl. – Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan said the team had tried their hardest to trade for quarterback Tim Tebow from Denver, but in the end Tebow didn’t want to go to Florida.

The Florida Times-Union interviewed Khan this week and the Jaguars owner said the team was willing to sacrifice a third round pick and eat $3 million dollars to land Tebow’s services.

Khan told reporters at the NFL:’s annual meetings,

“That would have been the worst thing for Jacksonville and the worst thing for him. He didn’t want to come, obviously. … Any one of the 53 players we have, have to be committed to Jacksonville, making us be the best team we are. The question was: Did he want to come? And if the decision had been taken out (of his hands) and we got him, that would not be good for him, or for us.”

Tebow originally said the decision was out of his hands.  He said,

“Ultimately, I really didn’t have any[Choice] because the Broncos had all that power. I was just kind of watching and waiting—kind of like everybody else. It was an interesting day.”

Broncos vice president John Elway said he did have a choice saying,

“We did. There was more (offered) from Jacksonville, but we looked at it and it was close enough and we were in contact with Tim throughout the day and talked to him. He knew what was going on the whole time, so the reports that he was not involved are not accurate,”

Jaguars coach Mike Mularkey said the team did a lot to try to get Tebow to come to Jacksonville, He said,

“Don’t believe everything you hear or read in the media. It’s hard not to want a guy like that. We wouldn’t have tried to trade for him if we didn’t feel like we didn’t want to have him here. There were a lot of things that went into this thing to try to get Tim to come here. In the long run, it did not work out. But if you do not want a player, you don’t even get involved.”

The Jaguars and Jets were the top two choices for Tebow.  In the end he told people that in New York he had a better chance to start.  Jacksonville told him they had no promises for where he would wind up on their roster.

Khan said,

“We were not going to say coming in, ‘He’s slotted at whatever’. We have two quarterbacks now (Blaine Gabbert and Chad Henne) that we’re committed to. He would have to compete with them.”

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Jacksonville Jaguars coach Mike Mularkey insists he wanted quarterback Tim Tebow.

Speaking before a fan event Thursday night, Mularkey indicated that reports saying otherwise were false.

“Don’t believe everything you hear or read in the media,” Mularkey said. “It’s hard not to want a guy like that. We wouldn’t have tried to trade for him if we didn’t feel like we didn’t want to have him here. There were a lot of things that went into this thing to try to get Tim to come here.

“In the long run, it did not work out. But if you do not want a player, you don’t even get involved with it.”

There were reports that Jacksonville’s front office and coaching staff didn’t really want Tebow. Owner Shahid Khan certainly did, telling general manager Gene Smith to explore a trade for the polarizing quarterback.

The Jaguars offered a fourth-round draft pick for Tebow, but the former Florida star ended up going to the New York Jets for two picks.

So if the Jaguars really wanted Tebow, who grew up in Jacksonville, why not give up a third-round pick?

“That’s confidential,” he said. “The draft is how you build a football team and that’s what we’re going to continue to do. That’s been the philosophy of this franchise; that’s my philosophy. You’ve got to be very careful what you start doing with draft picks and we feel strongly about the draft.”

The Jaguars have drafted three starters – defensive tackle Terrance Knighton, cornerback Derek Cox and guard Will Rackley – in the third round the last three years under Smith. They also chose defensive tackle D’Anthony Smith, who has yet to play a down in the regular season because of injuries.

Mularkey said internal talk about acquiring Tebow included him coming in as a backup QB. The coach declined to say whether the Jaguars intended to use Tebow mostly on special teams.

“Some of that’s confidential to talk about, but we talked about all scenarios as far as the backup quarterback,” Mularkey said. “He has some rare ability to do some things and all of that was discussed.”

Mularkey also called starter Blaine Gabbert and recently signed backup Chad Henne during all the trade talk Wednesday.

“I wanted to make sure they were updated with where things are and where they aren’t, and that what we told them from the beginning had not changed,” Mularkey said. “We wanted to reconfirm it. We hadn’t been in contact with (Gabbert) for a number of weeks because of the way the new CBA is, but I just thought with the way things were going down it was important he heard from me and my belief in him and that why we brought him here had not changed.”

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

David Garrard appears to be the answer in Miami. Unfortunately for the Dolphins, the question was, “What quarterback do you sign when all your other choices have gone elsewhere?”

That’s not a slam on Garrard, who signed a one-year contract with the Dolphins on Monday and was told he’d be able to compete for the starting job. The nine-year veteran who has spent his entire pro career with the Jacksonville Jaguars could end up being a great pickup for the team if fully recovered from back surgery last October.

After all, this is a guy who threw 18 touchdown passes and only three interceptions in 2007, passed for more than 3,500 yards in 2008 and 2009 and also made the Pro Bowl in 2009.

But it’s just not the splashy move the Dolphins were looking to make at quarterback this off-season. They pursued the top free agents at the position — Peyton Manning and Matt Flynn — and were spurned by both.

They brought in Alex Smith, another free agent who appeared to be in limbo with the 49ers during the Manning saga. But Smith’s job seems to be secure in San Francisco once again.

The Dolphins won’t be getting a highly coveted quarterback with the eighth pick in the draft either. Not with the Indianapolis Colts seemingly locked in on Stanford’s Andrew Luck at No. 1 and the Washington Redskins moving up to No. 2, presumably to pick Baylor’s Robert Griffin III.

Basically there just weren’t enough big name quarterbacks to go around. So the Dolphins turned to Garrard, a guy they initially pursued last season when they lost then-starter Chad Henne to a shoulder injury. But Garrard, who was cut by the Jaguars five days before the season started, opted to get his back fixed instead.

Matt Moore ended up starting the rest of the season for the Dolphins and did pretty well, going 6-6 while completing 60.5% of his passes for 2,497 yards with 16 touchdowns and nine interceptions.

So maybe the Dolphins will be fine with a little healthy competition among Garrard, Moore and anyone else they might pick up (they might draft someone and, don’t forget, Tim Tebow might soon be available).

“It’s going to be a great competition, and I’m all about that,” Garrard said. “I’m going to do my best to make sure it’s me on opening day.”

RELATED:

Alex Smith interviews in Miami … Is Tebow next?

Plenty of stars available in NFL besides Peyton Manning

Courtship of Manning by NFL teams has other QBs scrambling

By
Erik Matuszewski
-

Tue Mar 20 04:00:54 GMT 2012

Former Jacksonville Jaguars
quarterback David Garrard signed with the Miami Dolphins, who
missed out on free agents Peyton Manning and Matt Flynn.

Garrard, who was out of the National Football League in
2011 after being cut by the Jaguars, said last night on his
Twitter page he “couldn’t be happier” about his new team.

Garrard, 34, may compete with Matt Moore for the starting
quarterback job in Miami next season. The Dolphins had Manning,
Flynn and Alex Smith in for visits, though Manning is headed for
the Denver Broncos, ESPN reported, and Flynn signed with the
Seattle Seahawks. The Dolphins may still consider signing Smith,
who spent the past six NFL seasons with the San Francisco 49ers,
the Associated Press said.

In nine seasons in Jacksonville, Garrard passed for 16,003
yards, with 89 touchdowns and 54 interceptions. He was the
Jaguars’ starter from 2005-10 and was released five days before
the first game of the 2011 regular season.

The Dolphins reached out to Garrard when Chad Henne
suffered a season-ending shoulder injury, but Garrard underwent
back surgery in October.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Matuszewski in New York at
matuszewski@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Sillup at
msillup@bloomberg.net

ESPN is reporting that former East Carolina and Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Davis Garrard is headed to the Miami Dolphins.

After failing to land Peyton Manning, the Dolphins courted David Garrard, Matt Flynn and Alex Smith to name a few.

Garrard sat out out all of the 2011 season after being cut by the Jaguars.

Terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Even with former Miami Dolphins starter Chad Henne in the mix, the Jacksonville Jaguars don’t anticipate a quarterback competition.

Henne signed a two-year contract worth nearly $6.75 million with the Jaguars on Wednesday night, giving the team a capable backup to Blaine Gabbert.

The Jaguars were looking to upgrade the No. 2 spot after Luke McCown failed to impress general manager Gene Smith in four games and two starts last season.

Nonetheless, new coach Mike Mularkey created a minor buzz Thursday when he spoke about Henne’s role.

Mularkey says Henne is “coming in as a backup, competing for a starting job.” He adds that Henne “knows his role” and that he has assured Gabbert that he’s the team’s starter.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.