Jaguars OTA Day 8 Recap

The Jaguars wrapped up their 8th OTA Tuesday Morning.

By Jordan de Lugo

@jordandelugo

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The Jaguars wrapped up their 8th day of 2017 Organized Team Activities on Tuesday. For the second straight day the team was forced to move practice up to an earlier time in order to avoid rain (certainly much to Doug Marrone's chagrin).

No major storylines have come out of OTA day 8, but one storyline that has persisted throughout the Jaguars two plus weeks of OTAs is the amount of key players missing. According to Ryan O'Halloran of the Florida Times-Union the team's two starting safeties Barry Church and Tashaun Gipson have both missed every "practice" so far. Aaron Colvin, who is entering a contract year, has yet to take the field recovering from an ankle injury sustained last season. TJ Yeldon figures to have a somewhat prominent role, and will at the very least be a key backup if injury should befall Leonard Fournette - he too has yet to participate. Receiving tight end Neal Sterling is the final injured player that has yet to go. Of course there's still Branden Albert who is holding out and there's a couple of undrafted rookies who can't participate yet due to graduation rules.

For the Jaguars the hope is that this isn't a sign of things to come. This is a team that can hardly afford to have an injury plagued 2017 campaign as they attempt to make the playoffs for the first time in a decade.

One major storyline this offseason is on the defensive side of the ball. Paul Posluszny has been tasked with making the move from middle to strong side linebacker in order to make way for the young and talented Myles Jack. The Poz has never played strong side linebacker in the NFL, so it will be a tough challenge for the veteran linebacker. The team's all time leading tackler believes he's up to the task. When asked if he can play at a high level at that spot (strong side linebacker) the veteran had this to say:

Absolutely. I have a lot of improvement that I need to make and a lot of technique things that I need to work on . . . but there's no reason why we can't have success with this change.

Posluszny has taken his move in stride, but that's typical for one of the best professionals to ever don the black and teal. He made it clear he will be doing a great deal of studying to improve in his technique at strong side linebacker. 

The Jaguars will have two more OTA "practices" this week before they prepare for Mandatory Mini Camp next week. 

Let us know what you think in the comment section below!

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