The Jacksonville Jaguars were without running back Chris Rodriguez at Organized Team Activities. Head coach Liam Coen just revealed that he underwent offseason surgery but didn't sound overly concerned about his absence, revealing that the veteran running back will be at full strength for training camp.
Rodriguez's appears to be making good progress in his recovery, but there's a chance he could fall behind other running backs on the Jacksonville depth chart since he's missed practice. However, Coen believes he will have no trouble catching up once he's back in teh fold.
Chis Rodriguez will have no trouble getting up to speed at Jaguars training camp
Liam Coen met with the local media after Day 3 of mandatory minicamp. He stated that he's not worried about Chris Rodriguez falling behind, noting that his familiarity with his offensive scheme should help him get up to speed quickly.
"It helps for sure. The onboarding process, more so the run game and protections, right?" Coen said when discussing running back assignments (4:23 mark). "That's the most that running backs have to know is their track. What's the concept of run? Whether it's outside zone, mid zone, tight zone, whatever those are, knowing what those tracks and footworks are. And then the blitz pickup and protections."
Coen continued, "Other than that, I mean, you're talking about check downs and routes that they learn through concepts, and we've been running a lot of the concepts that we're running now when I was at Kentucky in 21. I mean, there's so much that we're doing that may be different verbiage from what it was then, but very similar conceptually. So I'm really not worried about him at all. From a 'Can he, is he going to be ready mentally to go when we hit training camp?' Not worried about him, not one bit."
Rodriguez played for Coen when he was the offensive coordinator at Kentucky in 2021. He had a breakout season with the Wildcats that year, toting the rock 225 times for 1,379 yards with nine touchdowns.
The Jags signed Rodriguez to a two-year deal worth $10 million in free agency with the expectation that he'll help replace Travis Etienne and fix the stink that hindered Jacksonville last year (the running game).
Other Jaguars running backs benefit from Chris Rodriguez's absence
Every time a player misses time is a reason for concern. However, the Jaguars seem confident that Chris Rodriguez's absence due to surgery is a non-issue. Moreover, other running backs have benefited from him not being around.
Rodriguez is in no danger of tumbling down the depth chart, so Ameer Abdullah, DeeJay Dallas, and undrafted rookie J'Mari Taylor are getting extra reps while his away. This, in turn, helps the coaching staff to assess the running back room ahead of cutdown day.
The truth is that Liam Coen is convinced that Chris Rodriguez will be back once he's back, and there are no reasons to think he won't.
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