There aren’t many position groups with higher expectations for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2021 than the receiving corps. Despite the team’s disappointing 1-15 season in 2020, the receiving corps was a strength. D.J. Chark took a slight step back from his breakout 2019 campaign, but the additions of rookies Laviska Shenault and Collin Johnson more than made up for it.
Now that the team finally has an answer at quarterback, the receiver group is expected to take a major leap forward. With OTAs underway for Jacksonville, new free agent signing Marvin Jones Jr. (one of the top receivers from a production standpoint the Jags have had in years) finally got the opportunity to see the whole group in action.
Jones was impressed by what he saw, but he also said it was par for the course for what he expected given how the team meetings in the prior weeks had gone.
“I think it’s been great, and I think it’s just a transfer to what we’ve been doing for the past three weeks before we even got on the field with all of the coaches and stuff like that,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time together, probably almost two months now, so it’s been good.”
One thing that has already stood out to Jones is the versatility of the receiving group. It has Chark, who largely fits the mold of a deep-threat burner with his 6-foot-4 frame and top-tier ball skills, and Shenault, who lined up all over the field as a rookie and saw a good amount of action, taking carries out of the backfield in addition to seeing reps as a receiver.
Jones said he thinks the wide array of skill sets in the wideout room will be majorly beneficial to Jacksonville’s offensive production in Year 1 of the new regime, led by head coach Urban Meyer.
“Everybody’s going around flying fast and making big plays as we should and as we knew we were going to do,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of people, a lot of receivers in our group that can have different abilities and can put them in different places. You put Laviska [Shenault Jr.] in the backfield and watch him work and stuff like that. Everybody’s been great and everybody’s been taking the coaching and just having a good time. So, we’re just going to continue to do that.”
That’s exactly the kind of optimism Jags fans should want to hear from a high-budget free agent signing, and it’s a good sign for a unit that should the strength of the team in 2021.