Jones Is Pleased With Physical Practice On Tuesday
The Jaguars were greeted with a cool morning for their practice on Tuesday. The practice was marked with physical play in both position drills and team drills as the practice spanned over two hours.
Coach Jones said that the defensive line caught his eye in Tuesdays practice. “It was lively,” Jones said to AL.com about the practice session. “I thought the defensive front really stood out today. I thought the guys across there were playing harder and really put pressure on the quarterback and disrupted the run. I thought they played really well today and it was good to see them get after it.”
With the changes made on the defensive coaching staff in the off-season, the defense is still getting adjusted to the new members of the staff but their progress has been pleasing to Coach Jones. The offense continues to learn and perfect their understanding of the spread offense that was introduced last year by coach Matthews.
Jones praised the leadership he has on the team. He said that they continue to work hard as the number of practices remaining this spring are beginning to dwindle down. Jones said that they have practice on Thursday then a scrimmage on Saturday. Next week the Jags have Tuesday to practice then Thursday is in shorts prior to the Red-Blue Spring Game on Saturday.
“I think offensively, even though we’re doing some different things, I think the fact they have experience helps,” Jones explained to AL.com. “Our offensive line is working really hard. For the first time we’re going to have real depth there. I think we’ll go into next fall with 10 guys who can play once we get our injured guys back (Ucambre Williams, Shaun Artz). So I feel good about that. We’ve got some older receivers, some guys who have been around, some in their fifth year in the program. We’ve got a quarterback who started last year (Ross Metheny) and Brandon Bridge is coming along as well and we’re developing depth there and there’s a tight race. The competition is good.”
With only five practices left, which includes the spring game on April 6th, the Jags will try to get as much physical work in as possible. These will be the practices and scrimmages that will really lend themselves to good video for evaluating players prior to fall camp.
The Jags will return to the practice field on Thursday morning at 6am and again on Saturday for a scrimmage.