The Jaguars signed free agent running back Chris Rodriguez Jr. in March to help fill the hole left by Travis Etienne’s departure for the Saints.
Rodriguez, though, is not working with the team during the offseason program. Instead, he is working his way back from surgery on his left foot, which he injured during the conditioning program.
“He will be full go come training camp,” coach Liam Coen said after Tuesday’s minicamp workout, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN.
Bayshul Tuten and LeQuint Allen have taken the majority of reps at the position in Rodriguez’s absence.
Rodriguez ran 112 times for 500 yards and six touchdowns with the Commanders in 2025. He had 86 carries for 430 yards and four scores in his first two seasons.
He played five seasons at Kentucky, including 2021 with Coen as the Wildcats’ offensive coordinator.
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The Jaguars plan to continue playing Travis Hunter at both wide receiver and cornerback during the 2026 season, but he won’t be doing anything until he’s cleared for a full return to football activities.
Hunter tore his LCL late in October 2025 and missed the rest of his rookie season. He’s been around the team throughout the offseason and head coach Liam Coen said on 1010XL that there’s been obvious growth in terms of his strength, but that he remains unsure of when Hunter will get the green light to do everything needed to get ready for the season.
“I’m extremely pleased with where Travis is at mentally and physically,” Coen said. “I’m not a doctor, I don’t know when he is going to be full go but I do know that he runs on this field every morning with the guys and he’s looking damn good. He’s added so much mass on his upper half, he worked so hard in the weight room through the winter and this offseason. There is no question he’s gotten stronger, specifically in the upper half.”
Coen went on to say that he’s told Hunter that the injury is a “minor setback for a major comeback” and the Jaguars will need that to be true to make their trade up to take Hunter with the second overall pick look like a wise move.
The NFL likes to boast about its growing popularity overseas, but there’s at least one sign that foreign fans are deciding NFL tickets aren’t worth the price.
Tickets to the October 18 Texans-Jaguars game at London’s Wembley Stadium are not selling well. General tickets have been on sale since May 29, and it remains easy on ticket sites to find large blocks of tickets available. Searching ticket sites, fans can find blocks of 12 seats together in many sections of the stadium.
The popular NFL UK Tickets social media account, which tracks ticket availability for NFL London games and is not affiliated with the league, posted a seating map showing many tickets remain unsold.
“Can’t actually believe how badly the Texans v Jaguars game has sold. Over a week of the general sale and this is a snap shot of what the stadium looks like. Gone are the days of selling out the first day, people voting with their feet and staying away due to price,” NFL UK Tickets posted.
Replies to that post show many UK-based fans saying the NFL has made tickets too expensive, with some saying it’s cheaper to fly to the United States to see an NFL game than to buy tickets in their own home country.
The NFL will play a record nine international games this year and plans even more next year, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suggesting that the league may eventually play 16 games overseas, with every team leaving the country once. Poor ticket sales may be the only thing that could slow down the NFL’s aggressive international plans.
The Jaguars have added a pair of players on Thursday.
Jacksonville announced the club has signed cornerback Dane Jackson and offensive lineman Trystan Colon.
A seventh-round pick in 2020, Jackson has spent most of his career with the Bills. He appeared in three games for Buffalo last season after spending the 2024 season with Carolina. His first four years were all with the Bills.
Colon played 12 games with four starts for Detroit in 2024. He spent the previous two years with the Cardinals after appearing in 20 games with four starts for Baltimore from 2020-2022.
As corresponding moves, the Jaguars placed cornerback Keith Taylor on injured reserve and waived offensive lineman Sal Wormley.
The Jaguars brought in some experienced help for their defensive line on Monday.
The team announced the signing of defensive tackle Quinton Bohanna. There was no corresponding cut needed to make room on the 90-man roster.
Bohanna split the 2025 season between the Seahawks and the Packers. He had three tackles in five games for Seattle and two tackles in his only appearance for the Packers.
Bohanna has 44 tackles in 40 career appearances for the Seahawks, Packers, Titans, Lions, and Cowboys.
DaVon Hamilton, Arik Armstead, Ruke Orhorhoro, and third-round pick Albert Regis are also on hand on the interior of Jacksonville’s defensive line.
It’s unknown whether Travis Hunter will become an effective two-way player in the NFL. He has already established himself as a two-way earner.
The second overall pick in the 2025 draft received more than $12.8 million in royalties from the NFL Players Association, based on figures disclosed in the union’s latest LM-2 filing.
Hunter isn’t named in the document; the payment is attributed to TIPENTERPRISE LLC. Daniel Kaplan reports in an item for Front Office Sports that the company is owned by Hunter.
While significantly less than the $17.7 million earned by Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Hunter’s figure also breaks the prior single-year record of $9.5 million, set by Tom Brady.
Unlike Sanders, who signed a four-year, $4.647 million deal as a fifth-round pick, Hunter’s rookie deal pays $46.49 million — fully guaranteed.
Saints head coach Kellen Moore said in March that the team will be holding training camp in Louisiana this summer, but they will head to California for some extended work as well.
The Saints are scheduled to be in Los Angeles for their second preseason game and Moore said at a Thursday press conference that the team is slated to hold joint practices with the Rams before that contest. Moore also said that the team plans to work out with the Cowboys, who train in Oxnard, while they are out west.
The final game of the preseason will take place against the Cowboys in Dallas.
Moore said that the team will also be hosting joint practices with the Jaguars. The two teams will face each other in the Superdome on August 15.
Travis Hunter will play both ways for the Jaguars again this season. Critics say it’s a mistake, citing Hunter’s uneven rookie season that ended prematurely with a knee injury.
Hunter is familiar with the doubters.
“It didn’t bother me,” Hunter said Wednesday, via Michael DiRocco of ESPN. “They’ve been doing that my whole career.”
Hunter played 324 offensive snaps and 162 defensive snaps in seven appearances last season before tearing the lateral collateral ligament in his right knee during an Oct. 30 practice. He underwent surgery on Nov. 11.
Hunter finished with 28 catches for 298 yards and a touchdown on offense to go with 15 tackles on defense.
The Jaguars will play Hunter more on defense, but he will still play offense.
First, though, he has to get healthy. He still isn’t cleared to fully participate in football activities, which isn’t expected until some point in training camp.
Hunter, though, isn’t wearing a knee brace, according to DiRocco.
“I’ve got to get back on the [practice] field first,” Hunter said. “I’m excited to just be able to get back on the field and work with the guys.”
For a time in January, it seemed as if Jaguars offensive coordinator Grant Udinski would be a head coach in 2026.
But the now-30-year-old Udinski took himself out of consideration for the Browns job that went to Todd Monken. And while he also interviewed with the Bills, Joe Brady filled that vacancy with his promotion from offensive coordinator.
So Udinski stuck with the Jags, receiving a contract extension as he enters his second season with the club.
He told reporters in a Tuesday press conference that he felt like going through head coaching interviews was “a great process to go through.”
“I was honored to be able to be considered for those opportunities, and really, it’s a testament to the work that our team and our offense has put in to kind of raise my status and elevate me to even be considered,” Udinski said, via transcript from the team. “You go through that process and you learn a lot about what you believe in and what you think and what you really are convicted in because you think about all the different things you’ve come across over your time in coaching or even before coaching, and you kind of have to whittle it down to the things that are most important to you and your core values.
“So, a lot of what you’re learning is really maybe things that you already knew, but what are your priorities? That kind of becomes the focus of those interviews because it’s such a short period of time where you’re trying to put together all of your plans and thoughts in a clear and concise manner.”
Udinski, whose ascent in coaching has been quick, noted he still feels like he has plenty of room to grow in his current role.
“There’s a lot of things that I look back on last year’s season and just like we talk about evaluating where we need to improve as an offense, a lot of it will start with me as the coordinator,” Udinski said. “And there are really simple things that I think I could have communicated this better, I could have communicated this more clearly. And then there are maybe more complicated things where we built a certain package of plays in a way where I felt like I could have done a better job of putting those plays together.
“[I] probably have a list of 200 things that, unfortunately, I could improve on. The bright side of that is there’s 200 things that I can improve on. So as a coordinator, for me personally, it’s the same approach that we take with the offense when we say we want to run the ball better, well how does that start with my role? What am I doing? How am I influencing the run game to make sure that that’s actually possible? So just like we sit down and evaluate those things, I’ve got to do the same thing for myself.”
It will be a while before the Jaguars have to submit any depth charts for the 2026 season and it sounds like the one they publish for the running back position is going to be subject to change at any moment.
The Jags saw Travis Etienne leave as a free agent this offseason and they signed Chris Rodriguez to go with Bhayshul Tuten and LeQuint Allen in their offensive backfield. Etienne got the lion’s share of the work last season, but head coach Liam Coen said on Tuesday that no one has been moved into the No. 1 role yet and that the team will let things take shape organically heading into the fall.
“It’s a group that has a lot of opportunities to them,” Coen said. “There’s a wide-open room. It’s truly wide open.”
The Jaguars finished 20th in the league in rushing yards last season. If the new approach can improve on that total, it will help their bid for a second straight AFC South title.
