JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Josh Hines-Allen tipped the scales like never before in 2024.
The seventh-year pro beefed up to 285 pounds at the behest of first-year (now former) Jacksonville Jaguars defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen, whose “mass kicks ass” motto was a mainstay during the offseason and in training camp.
It was catchy — and ultimately consequential.
Hines-Allen and several defensive teammates swelled past the point of stout, and it showed on the field. The Jaguars ranked 31st in the NFL in total defense last season, allowing nearly 390 yards a game. They gave up 26 points a game, tied for second-most in the league, and finished with the fewest takeaways (nine).
“Holding a little bit more weight kind of puts a little bit more wear and tear on the body,” Hines-Allen said. “It was a lot. Too much.”
Hines-Allen won’t blame his performance — he totaled eight sacks after notching a career-high 17 1/2 in 2023 — on the extra pounds. But he suspects they were related.
“My body was not cooperating as much as I would want it to,” Hines-Allen said. “I take care of my body to the utmost, but it was a little bit different.”
Hines-Allen insists it won’t happen again. Although he declined to disclose his current weight, he looks and feels leaner. And he’s hardly alone.
Linebacker Devin Lloyd is down 15 pounds, from 255 to 240. Defensive end Travon Walker is a little lighter and has overhauled his body mass index. Veterans Arik Armstead, Foye Oluokun and DaVon Hamilton also are slimmer than last season — and the Jags expect it to pay dividends.
“Just the stamina aspect, bursts, getting out of breaks,” Lloyd said. “It’s a lot easier, a lot more natural. For me, the cardio aspect of it was the biggest deal. You’re running all day, and after like four or five plays, you get tired. Now you can be a little more prolonged with your endurance.”
Jacksonville owner Shad Khan cleaned house following last year’s 4-13 finish. He fired coach Doug Pederson and later parted with general manager Trent Baalke. Nielsen, his defensive assistants and the entire strength and conditioning staff were let go once general manager James Gladstone, coach Liam Coen and executive vice president Tony Boselli took over.
The first edict for the defense might as well have been “mass is in the past.”
“I know that they’d put some weight on in order to play some of the schemes, structures that they were playing,” Coen said. “That’s just anybody’s prerogative. That’s the way they wanted to do it.
“Ultimately, just kind of evaluating it and talking to some of the players and trying to get them back down a little bit to maybe where they’d been when they’d had better years or been a little bit more productive. Definitely better for those guys to feel fresh.”
Hines-Allen feels much fresher — and lighter on his feet. He reached 20 mph during workouts last week.
“I still got it,” he quipped.
With weight off his mind for the first time in more than a year, Hines-Allen is now focused on staying healthier, being on the field more, becoming an All-Pro, earning Defensive Player of the Year and setting the franchise sack record. He has 53 sacks, two shy of tying Tony Brackens for the team mark set in 2003.
“I can’t go into another season thinking about my weight,” Hines-Allen said. “You know what I mean? That’s why this year, coming back in that mindset and that weight class that I feel like I need to be, and it’s dominant, it’s fast, can move.
“I don’t want to get off the field. … Get out, get a squirt of water, come back in and play four or five plays full speed and take over games. That’s my mentality, that’s the mindset and that’s the goal at the end of the day.”
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Jacksonville Jaguars defensive end Josh Hines-Allen answers questions during a news conference after a team NFL football practice, Monday, June 2, 2025, in Jacksonville, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to own Greenland. He has repeatedly said the United States must take control of the strategically located and mineral-rich island, which is a semiautonomous region that's part of NATO ally Denmark.
Officials from Denmark, Greenland and the United States met Thursday in Washington and will meet again next week to discuss a renewed push by the White House, which is considering a range of options, including using military force, to acquire the island.
Trump said Friday he is going to do “something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.”
If it's not done “the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way," he said without elaborating what that could entail. In an interview Thursday, he told The New York Times that he wants to own Greenland because “ownership gives you things and elements that you can’t get from just signing a document.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO, and Greenlanders say they don't want to become part of the U.S.
This is a look at some of the ways the U.S. could take control of Greenland and the potential challenges.
Trump and his officials have indicated they want to control Greenland to enhance American security and explore business and mining deals. But Imran Bayoumi, an associate director at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, said the sudden focus on Greenland is also the result of decades of neglect by several U.S. presidents towards Washington's position in the Arctic.
The current fixation is partly down to “the realization we need to increase our presence in the Arctic, and we don’t yet have the right strategy or vision to do so,” he said.
If the U.S. took control of Greenland by force, it would plunge NATO into a crisis, possibly an existential one.
While Greenland is the largest island in the world, it has a population of around 57,000 and doesn't have its own military. Defense is provided by Denmark, whose military is dwarfed by that of the U.S.
It's unclear how the remaining members of NATO would respond if the U.S. decided to forcibly take control of the island or if they would come to Denmark's aid.
“If the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops,” Frederiksen has said.
Trump said he needs control of the island to guarantee American security, citing the threat from Russian and Chinese ships in the region, but “it's not true” said Lin Mortensgaard, an expert on the international politics of the Arctic at the Danish Institute for International Studies, or DIIS.
While there are probably Russian submarines — as there are across the Arctic region — there are no surface vessels, Mortensgaard said. China has research vessels in the Central Arctic Ocean, and while the Chinese and Russian militaries have done joint military exercises in the Arctic, they have taken place closer to Alaska, she said.
Bayoumi, of the Atlantic Council, said he doubted Trump would take control of Greenland by force because it’s unpopular with both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, and would likely “fundamentally alter” U.S. relationships with allies worldwide.
The U.S. already has access to Greenland under a 1951 defense agreement, and Denmark and Greenland would be “quite happy” to accommodate a beefed up American military presence, Mortensgaard said.
For that reason, “blowing up the NATO alliance” for something Trump has already, doesn’t make sense, said Ulrik Pram Gad, an expert on Greenland at DIIS.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told a select group of U.S. lawmakers this week that it was the Republican administration’s intention to eventually purchase Greenland, as opposed to using military force. Danish and Greenlandic officials have previously said the island isn't for sale.
It's not clear how much buying the island could cost, or if the U.S. would be buying it from Denmark or Greenland.
Washington also could boost its military presence in Greenland “through cooperation and diplomacy,” without taking it over, Bayoumi said.
One option could be for the U.S. to get a veto over security decisions made by the Greenlandic government, as it has in islands in the Pacific Ocean, Gad said.
Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands have a Compact of Free Association, or COFA, with the U.S.
That would give Washington the right to operate military bases and make decisions about the islands’ security in exchange for U.S. security guarantees and around $7 billion of yearly economic assistance, according to the Congressional Research Service.
It's not clear how much that would improve upon Washington's current security strategy. The U.S. already operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, and can bring as many troops as it wants under existing agreements.
Greenlandic politician Aaja Chemnitz told The Associated Press that Greenlanders want more rights, including independence, but don't want to become part of the U.S.
Gad suggested influence operations to persuade Greenlanders to join the U.S. would likely fail. He said that is because the community on the island is small and the language is “inaccessible.”
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen summoned the top U.S. official in Denmark in August to complain that “foreign actors” were seeking to influence the country’s future. Danish media reported that at least three people with connections to Trump carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.
Even if the U.S. managed to take control of Greenland, it would likely come with a large bill, Gad said. That’s because Greenlanders currently have Danish citizenship and access to the Danish welfare system, including free health care and schooling.
To match that, “Trump would have to build a welfare state for Greenlanders that he doesn’t want for his own citizens,” Gad said.
Since 1945, the American military presence in Greenland has decreased from thousands of soldiers over 17 bases and installations to 200 at the remote Pituffik Space Base in the northwest of the island, Rasmussen said last year. The base supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the U.S. and NATO.
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told Fox News on Thursday that Denmark has neglected its missile defense obligations in Greenland, but Mortensgaard said that it makes “little sense to criticize Denmark,” because the main reason why the U.S. operates the Pituffik base in the north of the island is to provide early detection of missiles.
The best outcome for Denmark would be to update the defense agreement, which allows the U.S. to have a military presence on the island and have Trump sign it with a “gold-plated signature,” Gad said.
But he suggested that's unlikely because Greenland is “handy” to the U.S president.
When Trump wants to change the news agenda — including distracting from domestic political problems — “he can just say the word ‘Greenland' and this starts all over again," Gad said.
CORRECT THE ORDER OF SPEAKERS, FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, left, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)
FILE - Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, Sept. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
President Donald Trump listens as he was speaking with reporters while in flight on Air Force One, Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, as returning to Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen arrives for a meeting of the Coalition of the Willing at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, Tuesday, Jan.6, 2026. (Yoan Valat, Pool photo via AP)
FILE - A plane carrying Donald Trump Jr. lands in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 7, 2025. (Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, file)
