The Jaguars have three important players recovering from surgeries as they head into camp and General Manager David Caldwell said each of them will be evaluated next week to see how much they’ll be able to do when practices begin.
Running back Maurice Jones-Drew is returning from the foot injury that swamped his 2012 season and hasn’t been cleared by doctors yet, which is also true of defensive end Jason Babin and wide receiver Justin Blackmon. Both of them are recovering from offseason groin surgeries.
Ryan O’Halloran of the Florida Times-Union reports that Caldwell said Blackmon would likely be “a little limited” at the outset of camp, but that he didn’t anticipate Blackmon would be so limited that he’d need to go on the PUP list. Blackmon will practice with the Jags and play preseason games before serving a four-game suspension to begin the regular season.
As for Jones-Drew, running backs coach Terry Richardson said recently that he expects to have his top running back in pads when the Jags put them on for the first time on July 31. Camp opens July 26 and Caldwell didn’t offer much of a hint if he thought Richardson was on the right track beyond the fact that Jones-Drew is “trying to get healthy.”