The Jaguars took to the Miller Electric Practice Fields on Tuesday in one of their most physical practices of the offseason. While it was an overall pretty balanced day for the starting offense and defense, the edge was definitely there for both sides in this one, as the team corrects their opportunities from the preseason loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers while preparing for Sunday’s 1 P.M. matchup against the New Orleans Saints in Louisiana.

Here are our notes from Day 14 of Jacksonville Jaguars training camp.

Practice Observations

It seems that WR Parker Washington has found his groove, as the third-year receiver just continues to chop wood, carry water, and make ridiculous highlight plays. As he did on day 11 of camp, Washington made two highlight reel plays in today’s practice. His day opened with a 1-on-1 winning rep, matched up against CB Jourdan Lewis. After running the deep route in lockstep, Washington won the long rep, despite really tight coverage by Lewis, snatching the ball off of Lewis’ helmet while both fell to the ground. He then caught a 40-plus yard pass from Lawrence where he streaked wide open down the sideline and caught another 20-yard reception against Andrew Wingard. To wrap up his day, he caught this one-hander, beating Jarrian Jones and also forced a pass interference against Travis Hunter in the redzone.

Speaking of Hunter, today may have been the first day Travis has played exclusively on one side of the ball since the team added his ability to switch sides during practice. With Tyson Campbell day-to-day and Montaric Brown week-to-week, the top depth of the cornerback room could understandably use Hunter’s presence. Playing with the first-team defense, Hunter’s day started off in 1-on-1s giving up a sideline catch to Dyami Brown and flagged for pass interference on his second rep against Brown (where he intercepted the ball). In the teams period, he nearly missed out on a diving interception on a Lawrence throw-away out of bounds, dragging his feet just outside of the field of play. He was again flagged for interference against Parker Washington, for holding his jersey during the route.

While it was a highlight day for Parker, outside of Washington, it was a moderately quiet day for the rest of the Jaguars receiving core. Drops by Brian Thomas Jr, Brenton Strange, Dyami Brown in the teams period put somewhat of a damper on the starting unit’s day. Additionally, RB Travis Etienne had a bad drop in his 1-on-1 rep against Andrew Wingard and Brown had a tipped pass that resulted in an Eric Murray interception (though the ball was slightly behind him).

To highlight the day, we had our first (moderately) significant camp skirmish between two rookies: UDFA LB Branson Combs and Seventh-Round RB LeQuint Allen. There was no winner of the scuffle, as the team quickly rushed in to clear the two. Allen has been a hammer throughout much of camp, and it makes sense that tempers would eventually flare.

Coach Campanile spoke to the line that players have to walk, being aggressive, fighting in a contact sport, and having an edge in his post-practice availability.

“That’s a good thing. I think I think it means guys are usually competing. You don’t want guys fighting all day and wrecking the practice. There’s not time for that, but sometimes tempers flare. Usually, that means there’s emotion out there, and I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. We don’t want them fighting each other all practice, but the guys are getting heated and competing. I think that’s a good thing.”

He continued…

“You don’t want to be throwing punches at all, but it’s football. It’s an emotional game. Nobody’s worth 15 is what we say. Nobody’s worth 15 yards. So, we don’t want to do that, but in the heat of the battle in camp, I’d be hard pressed to say I was ever in a football camp where there wasn’t some emotion and then guys pushing and shoving and all that. So, it’s kind of status quo.”

On the ground, rookie RB Bhayshul Tuten had a really nice rush in the teams period where he got small while in the hole, bounced off the back of one of his blocking linemen, then burst through the hole for what likely would have been a 50-yard touchdown. However, a notable for his practice today was that he seemed to struggle in pass protection during his 1-on-1 reps, losing reps to S Eric Murray and Cam’Ron Silmon-Craig. Both beat him on an inside swim move to get to the quarterback.

In this back-and-forth battle of offense and defense, the Jaguars pass rush showed up with DE Josh Hines-Allen collecting three sacks in today’s practice. DE Emmanuel Ogbah also got home twice with Devin Lloyd and Dennis Gardeck each joining the party with one sack also. Coach Campanile discussed Gardeck post-practice:

“He’s a high-effort guy if you’ve ever watched him play. He practices physical. He had some really physical reps today. I think he brings a lot of good traits out there on the field with him. He’s a good pass rusher, physical in the run game. So excited to have him out there.”

Presser Observations

Coach Campanile provided a few comments in reference to Saturday’s defensive performance:

“I think we’ve got to do a better job with communication. I think that’s probably the number one thing. That’s just everywhere. Even the sideline operation, all that stuff. So, I think a lot of that stuff, first game, preseason, you see stuff like that, and you get better at everything. That’s what we’re focused on right now. I think the guys have done a great job of that last two days. So, working hard and getting that right. They did a lot of good things, too.”

However, it wasn’t all negatives, as Coach Camp also noted:

“I thought the positives probably were I thought we did a good job in the run game overall. We were physical in the front. The four-minute stop, that was good to see at the end of the game. Thought the guys kept competing that way. Three-and-out early in the game was good. A lot of things to correct, but definitely some positives there. Like I said, I thought the run game, we did a pretty good job overall.”

Coach Camp also noted that the Steelers’ opening touchdown was the result of a missed assignment, which we touched on in our Jaguars vs Steelers Rewatch.

“On that one, we just had a little bit of an M.A. [missed assignment] there in the coverage, something we’ve got to clean up, which we cleaned up when we got back in the next day, and that’s really what happened.”

You can watch the full press conference here.