Jaguars get value UDFA signing in former Texas DB Josh Thompson

For the first time since 2014, the Texas football program went without a single NFL Draft pick. Texas came into the festivities this week for the 2022 NFL Draft with a pretty thin class that only featured former senior starting defensive back Josh Thompson and senior kicker Cameron Dicker.

But this duo of former Longhorns players would wind up going undrafted this weekend.

It didn’t take long, though, for both former Longhorns to find a landing spot in the NFL after going undrafted. For Thompson, it was the Jacksonville Jaguars out of the AFC South that signed him on April 30 as an undrafted free agent.

Thompson was one of the first former Longhorns players signed as an undrafted free agent this weekend.

This could be an intriguing fit for Thompson with the Jaguars. Since the Jaguars needed to add some depth in the secondary behind a solid starting group of cornerbacks and safeties, Thompson does have a very realistic shot to make this roster.

Jags get an excellent value UDFA signing in former Texas football DB Josh Thompson

But the Jags did load up on defensive back depth in the late rounds of the 2022 NFL Draft by picking the former Ouachita Baptist cornerback Gregory Junior and former Arkansas Razorbacks cornerback Montaric Brown in the sixth and seventh rounds, respectively. The Jags haven’t signed any other defensive backs among the undrafted free agent pool other than Thompson.

That is another reason to believe he has a good shot to make this roster.

Moreover, what the Jags are getting out of Thompson is a versatile and athletic 6-foot-1 and 191-pound defensive back that was a starter in the last few years for the Longhorns at safety and cornerback.

Thompson’s length and ability to jump with most wide receivers he’s covering make him an appealing defensive back at the next level. He’ll need to stay healthy and work on his consistency in terms of fundamentals and footwork in pass coverage.

While Thompson is fast in terms of straight-line speed (ran a 4.40 second 40 time at the NFL Draft Combine), there are times when his hip speed and footwork do lag behind. That can cause him to get beat at times in pass coverage by some of the quicker and shifter wide receivers.

Those are aspects that the Jags should be able to help Thompson improve if he’s able to focus on playing one position in the secondary. He never really had one established position during his five years playing for Texas.

But that could also help Thompson adapt at the next level since he has experience playing at multiple different cornerback and safety spots during his time with Texas.

Some of the positive aspects of Thompson’s game include the fact that he was so versatile at Texas while taking on some of the most important coverage assignments. He was also starting to become more of a playmaker in the secondary in his last two years on the Forty Acres.

In the last two seasons, Thompson started to show more vision and excellent timing in jumping routes than ever before. His field vision also helped him to make occasional big plays defending the run and rushing the passer in the last few years.

Thompson had more targets in pass coverage per game last season than any other defensive back for the Longhorns (around four per game). He gave up 25 catches for a little over 320 receiving yards and three touchdown catches last season on those three-dozen targets in coverage.

In the last two seasons combined, Thompson registered more than 50 combined tackles, five tackles for loss, two interceptions (including one returned for a touchdown), a half-dozen pass breakups, and one fumble recovery. He also came up with nearly two-dozen stops and a half-dozen quarterback pressures during that span.

All in all, it’s clear that the Jaguars are getting a defensive back that could play in a number of different spots if he does make the roster this year by signing Thompson as an undrafted free agent. There’s also a good argument to make that he will be the best-value undrafted free agent signing for the Jags this offseason.

I would argue that Thompson has the highest ceiling at the next level of any of the Longhorns players in this draft class. If he pans out for the Jags in the next few years, this wouldn’t be the first time that an undrafted Texas defensive back makes an impact at the next level (i.e. Holton Hill and Adrian Philips, among others).