Will the Jaguars starters play in the preseason finale vs. Miami? Liam Coen made his decision.
Following the Jacksonville Jaguars’ joint practice with the Miami Dolphins on Thursday, head coach Liam Coen revealed the team’s plan for the preseason.
The Jaguars‘ starters will not play.
“We are not going to play our starters,” Coen said via Jaguars on SI. “We got them the two weeks of work in the first two games. “
Coen added that ideally, the joint practice would have taken place earlier in the preseason, which would have then allowed the starters to not play in one of the previous preseason games.
In that instance, he then would have played the starters for a series or so in Week 3 as a final ramp-up before the regular season. That’s how Tampa did things last season, and Coen liked how that played out.
Perhaps that will be a scheduling change the Jaguars make in Year 2 under Coen.
“It’ll be a lot of young guys getting some quality work,” Coen added, “and there’s a lot of guys that are going to play, that are fighting for a roster spot, or fighting for a roster spot potentially on someone else’s team. So this is valuable tape, a great challenge that some are going to obviously go up against… it’s a good opportunity for those guys as well.”
Dolphins’ head coach Mike McDaniel said that Miami’s starters will play to some extent in this game.
Not on the practice field on Thursday during the team portion of the practice was Travis Hunter. The decision to keep Hunter out seems to be precautionary.
“Could he have probably gone? I think so,” Coen said. “If this was Carolina, would he have probably played? Yeah, so we’re moving in the right direction.”
