JACKSONVILLE – They're building, practicing and evolving.
And if it's difficult to judge the offensive line so early in Jaguars 2024 Training Camp, center Mitch Morse said that's OK. This isn't the time for judging anyway.
"We’re just going to get our work in," he said.
Morse, the newest starter on the Jaguars' offensive line, spoke to the media following Day 10 '24 camp practice at the Miller Electric Center Sunday morning. Among the topics: the challenge of evaluating the offensive line when practices this time of year rarely feature live hitting.
It was a topic offensive coordinator Press Taylor discussed before practice Sunday when asked about if he felt the team felt more "physical," an area General Manager Trent Baalke this offseason said needed to improve.
"We think we're heading in the right direction," Taylor said. "That's something I don't know if you necessarily know until it's live-action and we're playing football. But we're encouraged about where we're heading with that aspect of our game and our unit as well. That's something we want to see continue to develop as we get rolling."
Morse, a 10-year veteran who signed with the Jaguars as a free agent from the Buffalo Bills in March, said the nature of the modern NFL makes training camp tricky for the offensive line.
"I think you can only do so much short-yardage, goal line while you're practicing against your own guys," Morse said. "You have to balance between getting those reps where there is a certain violence and physicality to it, but you also want to have guys be able to play on Sundays or ensuing practices.
"Hopefully, you're better in short-yardage goal-line at the end of the year than you are at the beginning. Not to say you want to be terrible at it at the beginning of the year, but I think coaches have to balance a delicate line and ours do that pretty well."
Morse, who played five seasons with the Bills after beginning his career with the Kansas City Chiefs, was signed in part to help improve an interior line that struggled at times in key situations last season. Taylor through the offseason discussed refocusing and improving as a running offense, and Morse on Sunday said he likes the approach in this area.
"They know what they want to run," Morse said. "The nice thing is they're going to stick to it. That gives us the freedom to ask questions, work on the techniques that they want, not be afraid to make mistakes out here so that we can correct those in the film room. We can have open dialogue, talk about what we see, what we like, what we don't like, and then at least no matter what we're on the same page.
"It's not going to be pretty every day. It might not be pretty early on in games. But just to have the confidence in the fact that hopefully, we can continue to call those even if they aren't hitting at first, so we can make those in-game adjustments or the sideline adjustments and not ride a roller coaster at times."
Morse, too, said while there are unknowns about the offensive line in early August – with players such as right tackle Anton Harrison (concussion), left guard Ezra Cleveland (leg), left tackle Cam Robinson (shoulder) and guard Cooper Hodges (back) dealing with injuries - such uncertainty is the rule and not the exception. The key, he said, is the work being done on a daily basis.
Asked what he has learned about the offensive line to date, he said, "Just the resilience of the group."
'We had a few guys go down as is the nature of training camp and guys stepped in, didn't bat an eye, worked when they had to," he said. "The great thing about that is when you get off the field, you have this huge kind of lax feel because you know you put your work in, and then we can make the adjustments and feel free to run and fly around and make mistakes because we're just trying to get better. I think this group does a very good job of that.
"I don't know if it's fair to put a specific timeline on, 'This is when you have to have something.' This is football. Rarely are you going to have those five work together from the start of camp through the end of February or whenever your season ends. We have to understand that in games people might go down. It actually is nice right now to have the confidence working with other dudes.
"Hopefully, those guys get back as healthy as possible and then we'll roll from there, and just kind of take the next swing that comes with it."
