Jaguars players try to stay sharp, focused during pandemic break

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – High school, college and professional athletes are in the same position right now.

With the COVID-19 pandemic forcing game cancellations in spring sports and keeping organized workouts and most facilities closed, the responsibility falls on athletes to get their work in whenever they can.

This week, Jaguars receivers Keelan Cole and Pro Bowler D.J. Chark, met backup quarterback Josh Dobbs at a local park to get in some activity with local trainer Koreen Burch.

Live reps with teammates and the ability to get in some conditioning work was a good break from the norm, especially with question marks on the calendar about organized team activities and training camp due to the everchanging COVID-19 situation.

“Working with Josh, working with Gardner [Minshew], you know, those are my quarterbacks, so being able to get a rhythm with them at this time, it’s going to just carry over if we don’t have OTAs and things like that,” Chark said. “Then this [type of workout] can, at that point, start taking place of that.”

Dobbs said every workout helps because of the uncertainty at this point. The NFL is still planning on going ahead with the draft as scheduled, but everything after that remains up in the air.

“Super crucial to get a chance to get around as many guys as you can, you know, if there aren’t OTAs, hopefully there are, but with everything going on, I mean you’ve got to prepare for the worst,” Dobbs said. “So, opportunities like this to get your work in, to get your rhythm, your timing down, to be able to hit the ground running come [training] camp, might be the only time we have together to throw as a team.”


About the Author:

Justin Barney joined News4Jax in February 2019, but he’s been covering sports on the First Coast for more than 20 years.