Jaguars safety Andrew Wingard is expected to miss “some significant time” during Jacksonville’s 2024 training camp as he nurses a knee injury suffered on Day 6 of practices, head coach Doug Pederson shared Friday.
“Dewey [Wingard] has the knee right now and he’s going to be out a while. Don’t know the timeframe yet but he’ll miss some significant time here in camp,” Pederson said, expressing uncertainty about the safety’s availability for Week 1 of the regular season in early September.
“We’re going to talk some more about that as a medical staff, you know, and find out and just see what his timeframe is,” said Pederson.
An undrafted prospect from Wyoming, Wingard joined the Jaguars following the 2019 NFL draft and has since spent five seasons with the team. He earned a three-year, $9.6 million contract extension from the club in March 2023.
In 78 appearances including 26 defensive starts with Jacksonville, Wingard has accumulated 250 tackles including eight for loss, two sacks, five interceptions, nine defended passes and three forced fumbles.
A core Jaguars special teamer, Wingard has been on the field for at least 64% of Jacksonville’s special teams snaps in all but one season with the team, 2021, when he made 15 starts defensively.
Wingard was an early standout in Jacksonville’s training camp. He intercepted three passes from Trevor Lawrence between Days 2-3, including two picks in team drills, which Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor described as “coaching opportunities” for the quarterback.
“I felt like one, [Lawrence] was probably late to a throw, left it inside, Dewey made a great play in the corner of the endzone,” Taylor described July 26.
“Another one was a naked [bootleg play-call], [Lawrence] thought there was going to be a pressure, he pulls up on a naked, which is not something we typically do. But he thought he saw something, he didn’t.”
Without Wingard available, Jacksonville’s safety room currently consists of six healthy contributors: Andre Cisco, Darnell Savage, Antonio Johnson, Daniel Thomas, Terrell Edmunds and Josh Proctor.