The Jacksonville Jaguars have made their point loud and clear: Bhayshul Tuten is not just hanging around the 53-man roster, he is sitting at the front of the running back depth chart. For a rookie drafted in the fourth round of the 2025 NFL Draft, that is not a polite little nod. It is a statement.
Depth charts are not gospel, but they are hardly meaningless either. When a team puts a rookie at the top line at a position that lives on touch counts, trust and weekly punishment, it is telling you something about how it sees him right now. Tuten has gone from Virginia Tech to the Jaguars with real momentum, and the early signs suggest Jacksonville believes he can handle more than just change-of-pace duty.
That matters because this is the sort of role that can disappear quickly if a player is merely filling space. Tuten has given the Jaguars a reason to be more ambitious than that. In Week 11 of his rookie season, he logged 15 carries for 74 yards and a touchdown against the Los Angeles Chargers, which is exactly the kind of line that does not make headlines by itself but does help explain why coaches keep leaning in his direction.
There is a difference between being on the team and being trusted by the team. Plenty of young backs survive roster cuts; fewer of them climb straight to the top of the chart. Tuten’s current status suggests the Jaguars are at least willing to test whether he can be more than a name on paper, and that is the real story here.
What the move says about Jacksonville
For the Jaguars, the appeal is obvious. A rookie running back who has already shown he can handle touches in an NFL game offers something every staff wants: cheap production with room to grow. The danger, of course, is that a depth chart can flatter a player before the league forces reality back into the room. But it is still notable when a fourth-round pick is listed first, because teams do not usually hand out that kind of status out of sentiment.
Tuten’s rise also fits neatly into the wider roundup of former Virginia Tech players who made NFL rosters. Jaden Keller is on the New York Jets practice squad, Kelvin Gilliam is on Dallas Cowboys injured reserve, and other Hokies found active spots as teams trimmed down to 53 on Monday. But among that group, Tuten’s situation is the most eye-catching, because his current role is not just survival. It is prominence.
That is why this deserves attention. Bhayshul Tuten is not being treated like a placeholder. He is being treated like a starter, and in the NFL that distinction can reshape everything from snap counts to expectations. Whether he keeps the job is a different question. For now, the Jaguars have already answered the one that matters most: they trust him enough to put him first.
