Following Friday’s training camp practice, Jacksonville Jaguars’ head coach Liam Coen still hasn’t determined if the Jaguars‘ starters will play in the team’s second preseason game against the Saints.
A key part in that determination will be the overall health of the roster.
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“We gotta go get this injury report because I don’t want to do too many ‘you’re playing, you’re not playing,’ that kind of deal,” Coen said after Friday’s practice. “So we need to make sure that if we are putting Trevor–we need to make sure we’re protected and we have the right guys in front, and the same with the runners, things like that. Just making sure we’re not putting people in vulnerable spots because we are injured.”
There’s always a balance that coaches want to find between making sure that their players get enough game-like reps to best prepare them for the regular season while also trying to mitigate any injury risk.
The Jaguars held an offense vs. defense scrimmage on Thursday, and by all accounts, it was a fairly sloppy performance from the offense in particular, with dropped passes and penalties being prevalent.
With the Jaguars implementing a new scheme on each side of the ball, any game-like reps can be quite valuable. However, as Coen said, he needs to be sure that no one is put in a compromising situation either because of injuries on the roster. There is also a point where the game-like reps don’t help all that much if a number of key players are held out.
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: Jaguars preseason: Coen undecided if starters will play v. Saints