‘There’s Just Going To Be a Continued Growth’: Why Press Taylor Preaches Patience With the Jaguars' OL
While the Jacksonville Jaguars enjoyed quite the resurgent campaign in 2022, the offensive line had quite a few struggles.
PFF ranked the Jacksonville Jaguars inside the top ten in pass blocking grade, but the same can’t be said about their run blocking, finishing 30th. ESPN ranked the Jaguars' offensive line 31st in pass-block win-rate. The examples of their outside criticism is plentiful entering the second week of training camp.
Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor made clear that the path toward improvement is continued growth.
“Yeah, it’s definitely going to be a step up, playing week one in shorts and a t-shirt is really not what the linemen envision football being like,” Taylor said. “You certainly get a feel for targeting, for their understanding of what we’re asking them to do. But now, physicality becomes real, you want to see who steps up, who rises to that challenge, does their technique go out the window because now it’s a little bit more physical?
"Each week through this preseason, everything ramps up. Eventually you line up across from somebody else but then the difference from preseason to week one is a huge step as well. There’s just going to be a continued growth, especially with these young guys.”
For those aforementioned young bucks, the key in the eyes of Taylor is continuing to maximize their positional versatility.
“Yeah, I think the best thing with that group is the versatility,” Taylor said. “You’ll see guys throughout this thing shuffle around, whether it be playing the right side, the left side, inside, outside.
"We’re going to have to see some guys snap at some point because we’ve got to continue to see how could you contribute on game day. If you’re not a starter, you have to be able to play more than one spot on the offensive line or you pigeonhole us, or you force us to move multiple people if something were to happen. We’ll continue to see that as we go, and then the biggest thing is what happens when the pads come on. It’s still not live or anything like that, but there’s an increased physicality as we move forward into this thing.”
