Tag: Evan Engram

Jaguars elevate TE Josh Pederson to active roster for Week 13

Josh Pederson, son of Doug Pederson, is set to play in his first NFL regular season game.

Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Josh Pederson, son of head coach Doug Pederson, was elevated from the practice squad to the active roster for a Week 13 game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Pederson, 26, joined the Jaguars in the 2023 offseason after a stint with the USFL’s Houston Gamblers. He previously spent time on the rosters of the San Francisco 49ers, Kansas City Chiefs, and New Orleans, but is set to play in his first ever regular season NFL game.

The elevation of Pederson likely means that Luke Farrell and/or Brenton Strange will be unavailable Monday night. Farrell was limited in all three of the team’s practices and is listed as questionable. Strange is also questionable after suffering a foot injury in practice that caused him to sit out the team’s Saturday session.

Starting tight end Evan Engram is the team’s primary pass catching option at the position. Farrell has been a blocker on 72.6 percent of his offensive snaps and Strange has blocked on 69.3 percent of his snaps.

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7 Jaguars most deserving of 2024 Pro Bowl Games votes

Which Jaguars players have your vote?

Voting for the 2024 Pro Bowl Games officially opened Monday and can be done right here.

Last year, despite earning an AFC South title and a playoff win over the Los Angeles Chargers, the Jacksonville Jaguars had zero players make the initial Pro Bowl roster. Eventually, injuries and the Super Bowl opened up enough spots that quarterback Trevor Lawrence and return specialist Jamal Agnew earned the honors.

The 2023 season should probably be different, though.

Unlike last year, the Jaguars won’t need to win five straight games to claw back above .500 and into the playoff picture. Jacksonville is rolling with an 8-3 record and plenty of deserving candidates.

In a conference with quarterbacks like C.J. Stroud, Josh Allen, Tua Tagovailoa, Patrick Mahomes, and Justin Herbert all putting up big numbers, it could take a lot for Lawrence to get another nod. But these seven Jaguars players deserve to get in when the rosters are announced later this season:

Jaguars excited to ‘give defenses hell’ with full receiving corps

After missing Zay Jones in six of the first nine games of the year, Jaguars receivers are excited to have the full arsenal down the stretch.

Trevor Lawrence and Jacksonville Jaguars coaches are undoubtedly happy to have Zay Jones back in the mix on offense. Nobody is more excited than the team’s other pass catchers, though.

It’s probably not a coincidence that Jaguars receiver Calvin Ridley had two touchdowns in the first game the team had Jones back from a knee injury.

“When we have our complete core, I mean, come on,” Ridley said after a 34-14 win against the Tennessee Titans. “When we have our complete core, we are more comfortable. We communicate better. Zay is one of the leaders in our room. It just helps the offense settle down and we have a lot of options to more ourselves a part of the offensive style.”

“It’s huge, man,” Jaguars tight end Evan Engram added Monday. “Zay’s been a huge part of this team the last year and a half. Just his presence out there. We all know his capability to make plays, his leadership qualities, his energy, and his reliability too.

“You have to account for everybody. That’s the talent in our skill group, you have to account for our skillset. That just gives defenses headaches. You have a bell-cow at running back and you have four dogs out wide who can go get the ball wherever and a quarterback who can spread it around. It just makes it hard for the defense. That’s a big part of our identity is to give them hell, give defenses hell.”

Unfortunately for Jacksonville, the team was without Jones for six of its first nine games due to a knee that was injured in Week 2 and re-injured in Week 5.

Ridley, in particular, has excelled with Jones in the lineup. In four games with his fellow receiver in the lineup, Ridley has averaged six receptions, 89.5 yards, and 0.75 touchdowns. In the six games without Jones, Ridley has three receptions, 36 yards, and 0.17 touchdowns per game.

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Jaguars ‘looking to get lick back’ vs. Texans after blowout Week 3 loss

There’s a lot at stake for the Jaguars on Sunday, including a chance at revenge for an embarrassing September loss.

A lot is on the line Sunday at NRG Stadium. The winner of a Week 12 game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and Houston Texans will be first place in the AFC South when December begins.

For the Jaguars, the divisional matchup is also a chance to right an earlier wrong. A 37-17 loss to the Texans at EverBank Stadium in September doesn’t sit well.

“They came in and handled their business here on our home turf,” Jaguars tight end Evan Engram said this week. “We have to respond after a great win [vs. the Titans], but we gotta respond from the first time we played them. It’s a big game, it’s a huge game, and we’ll definitely be looking to get our lick back.”

“You don’t want to lose to a team twice,” Jaguars linebacker Foye Oluokun said. “I just remember we didn’t tackle well, we had some communication errors in the defensive backfield … our energy was down and we didn’t play good football the whole game. We didn’t put our best foot forward in that game and they jumped on us because of that.”

The Texans entered that Week 3 matchup as a 7.5-point underdog after starting the year with an 0-2 record. But by halftime, it was Houston with a 17-0 lead.

While Jacksonville clawed back to within a touchdown of the lead, an 86-yard kickoff return for Texans fullback Andrew Beck ended much hope of a comeback.

“We remember that feeling and that gives you a little bit of motivation,” Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence said. “I think that only goes so far in this league, you still got to go and prepare and have a great plan and go execute on Sunday. You can have all the motivation in the world, I felt like we’ve been prepared in a lot of games and maybe didn’t play well.

“We all know what is at stake, there’s no hiding anything. You’re not going to pull any fast ones on anybody. We all know how big this game is and what it could mean at the end of the year.”

With a win, the 7-3 Jaguars would have a two-game lead in the AFC South and have tiebreakers all but wrapped up with a 4-1 record in divisional games. But a loss would allow the 6-4 Texans to pull even and secure the head-to-head tiebreaker with a season sweep.

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5 Jaguars players to watch vs. the Texans in Week 12

Here are 5 Jaguars players to watch in their game against the Texans in Week 12:

Last time the Jaguars played the Houston Texans, Jacksonville was supposed to cruise to victory in a bounce-back win at home against an 0-2. team. But that’s not how the matchup went at all.

The Jaguars lost 37-17 and fell to 1-2 to kick off a season filled with high expectations. Since Week 3, Jacksonville has rebounded in a big way, but Houston proved their early season success wasn’t a fluke.

If the Jaguars lose, the Texans will take over first place in the AFC South. But a win for Jacksonville would cement them as the best team in the division.

Here are five Jaguars players to watch in their Week 12 game against the Texans:

Fantasy football start ’em, sit ’em: Week 11

Check out these starts and sits for fantasy football in Week 11.

As the Week 11 slate of games kicked off Thursday night, the attention now turns to the start/sit decisions managers will face over the weekend as they stare down their fantasy football lineups.

For the third week in a row, four teams will be on a bye, including the Indianapolis Colts, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons.

Doing start/sit articles can be a little challenging. The players featured on the list below should not be taken as “must starts” or “must sits.” Instead, these are more suggestions on what we believe managers should do with fringe players heading into the weekend. The choice is ultimately up to the manager.

Just because a player is listed as a “start” doesn’t mean he should be put in the lineup over the secure, bona fide studs. Vice versa for the “sits.” If there’s no better option on the waiver wire or the bench, a manager shouldn’t automatically sit the player. That’s why these can be tricky waters to navigate.

Feel free to ask any specific start/sit questions via X, formerly Twitter, (@KevinHickey11), or check out our start/bench list for Week 11:

5 Jaguars who exceeded expectations in the first half of 2023

Which Jaguars player has been a pleasant surprise to you so far this year?

After a slow 1-2 start, the Jacksonville Jaguars have developed into the team NFL fans were expecting. The Jaguars have won their last five games and are sitting at 6-2 coming off their bye week.

Now, Jacksonville looks like an AFC contender with loads of talent that’s living up the billing. The offense was expected to carry Jacksonville to success after wide receiver Calvin Ridley’s arrival and anticipated development from quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

However, it’s the defense that has really stepped up in the Jaguars’ biggest moments. While the team hasn’t looked quite like the team everyone expected, a handful of players have elevated their play, making Jacksonville a true threat.

Here are the Jaguars’ five biggest overachievers through the first eight weeks of 2023:

How the Jaguars became experts at ‘finding a way’ to win

Blowouts, shootouts, and ugly wins all count the same. The Jaguars have figured out how to win games, no matter the scenario.

When the Jacksonville Jaguars hit their bye week a year ago, the team was 3-7 and looked like a group that simply didn’t know how to win football games.

“We’re just learning things the hard way, you know?” Jaguars coach Doug Pederson said in a press conference after one of five October 2022 losses. “We just have to keep hanging together and keep working. Just like I told the guys after the game, we do that, stick together, you know, good things are going to happen for them, and we’ll get it flipped around.”

That switch finally flipped in the latter half of the 2022 season when Jacksonville won its last five regular season games to steal the AFC South crown.

Along the way, the Jaguars had a flair for the dramatic, erasing a 17-point second half deficit to beat the Dallas Cowboys, scoring a defensive touchdown in the last three minutes to beat the Tennessee Titans, and digging out of a 27-0 hole against the Los Angeles Chargers in the playoffs.

It was a welcomed change for a Jaguars squad that previously found ways to blow it in crunch time. But Jacksonville’s habit for coming from behind was one the team wanted to kick before the 2023 season started.

“There were a lot of things last year that got us down and we had to really scrap and get back in the game and make a lot of comebacks. That taught us what not to do,” Jaguars tight end Evan Engram said.

Yet, the Jaguars found themselves in a familiar spot when they needed a fourth quarter comeback to win in Week 1 of the 2023 season. That victory was followed by back-to-back losses, including an embarrassing 20-point loss to the Houston Texans at home.

“That was a nice little punch in the mouth like, ‘Hey, we still gotta go earn everything that we want,'” Engram said. “That was a nice wake up call for us. For us to understand that we know what we have, but there are a lot of things we have to make happen on the field and in the week in our process for it to translate into us getting the dub.”

Since then, the Jaguars have been the ones jumping out to big leads. Jacksonville has led by double-digits in each of the last five weeks and, when a couple of those games got uncomfortably tight late, the Jaguars used the lessons learned a year ago to gut out wins.

“We’ve done it,” Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence said. “We’ve been able to do it so much in the past that I think we have that confidence of — whether you talk about the playoff game last year, the Dallas game before that, even this season in New Orleans, not playing great, they kind of have all the momentum at the end of the game — we find a way to score.

“You have to be able to fight through it, battle back, play the next play. We’ve gotten good at that.”

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5 Jaguars players to watch vs. the Saints in Week 7

Here are five Jaguars players to watch as they take on the Saints on Thursday:

The Jacksonville Jaguars are riding a win streak, but the same can’t be said about their Week 7 opponent.

Jacksonville has won three straight, but the New Orleans Saints have lost three of their last four games. The Saints have a handful of impactful players, but the Jaguars roster seems to have more talent, and they’ve hit a groove.

Jacksonville’s players are stepping it up and the team has seen vast improvements during a three-game win streak against the Atlanta Falcons, Buffalo Bills, and Indianapolis Colts.

Here are five Jaguars players to watch in their Week 7 game against the Saints:

One Jaguars player you should bet to score a TD in Week 7

Which Jaguars player is the likeliest to score a touchdown against the Saints on Thursday night?

Oddsmakers haven’t been sure what to make of the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Week 7 game against the New Orleans Saints. In the couple days since both teams played Sunday, each team has taken a turn being the underdog for Thursday.

With Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence’s availability for the game still up in the air, many prop bets were unavailable into Tuesday. But it was an optimistic afternoon Tuesday in Jacksonville with backup quarterback C.J. Beathard saying it’s “very likely” that Lawrence plays in Week 7.

One of the most popular ways to bet on an NFL game is the anytime touchdown scorer prop. You bet on one player to score a touchdown, and if they do, you make money.

Sounds simple, right?

It’s not as easy as it seems, but it is rewarding when the player you bet does find the end zone – especially if he plays for your team

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With the Jaguars facing the Saints on Thursday, we’ve highlighted one player you should bet to score a touchdown this week. Odds are courtesy of BetMGM.

Evan Engram anytime TD scorer: +310

The first instinct, given Lawrence’s injury, is to pick Travis Etienne Jr. to score Thursday. After all, the Jaguars running back already has five touchdowns, including four in the last two weeks.

Etienne’s +115 doesn’t offer much value on a pretty risky bet, though. The Saints have allowed just one rushing touchdown through six weeks.

What they have allowed in the last few games is for tight ends to get loose. The Texans’ Dalton Schultz and Buccaneers’ Cade Otton scored touchdowns against the Saints in the last three weeks.

Engram is due to get into the end zone and presents good value at +310 even if it’s Beathard under center.

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