Chris Rodriguez Jr.<\/a>\u2013 which makes practices such as Thursday morning’s against the New Orleans Saints at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center good and very enjoyable for the Jaguars veteran running back.<\/p>\nIt’s hitting time, and that’s Rodriguez’s thing.<\/p>\n
“With the pads on, that’s my game,” he said.<\/p>\n
Rodriguez signed with the Jaguars as a restricted free agent in March \u2013 and Head Coach Liam Coen on Thursday following practice said he sees Rodriguez increasingly becoming the physical, effective back they believe will help define their offense in 2026.<\/p>\n
“He had a couple nice downhill runs today that you like to see,” said Coen, who coached Rodriguez when Coen served as University of Kentucky offensive coordinator in 2021. “I thought he had a nice pickup and blitz protection as well today. “<\/p>\n
Rodriguez, a fourth-year veteran who played his first three seasons with the Washington Commanders, has been working toward peak shape early in 2026 Training Camp after missing much of the offseason program with a foot injury.<\/p>\n
“It’s day by day,” Coen said. “He’s getting better and better. I’ve been pleased with his progress.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"METAIRIE, La. \u2013 This is becoming his time. The more contact, the more physicality, the better for Chris…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":972453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[123190,9764,7,130,127772,896,55,2572,2571,131,133,31439,6,397,1918,5258],"class_list":["post-972452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-saints","tag-2026-training-camp","tag-chris-rodriguez-jr","tag-football","tag-front-page-headline","tag-jacksonville-jaguars-at-new-orleans-saints-2026-pre-1","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanssaints","tag-news-front-page-headline","tag-news-jaguars-news","tag-news-training-camp","tag-nfl","tag-saints","tag-sponsor-dream-finders-homes","tag-sponsors-dream-finders"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117090795064178460","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/972452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/972453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=972452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=972452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}