The Jacksonville Jaguars are getting a bit healthier in the secondary, with the Jaguars designating second-year cornerback Gregory Junior to return from the injured reserve list on Monday.
Junior now has 21 days to be added back to Jacksonville's 53-man roster.
Junior appeared in Jacksonville’s season opener and has missed the last six games with a hamstring injury. The second-year corner was originally selected by Jacksonville in the sixth round (197th overall) in the 2022 Draft.
Junior entered the season as the Jaguars' No. 4 cornerback behind Tyson Campbell, Darious Williams and Tre Herndon, with Junior having a standout training camp and preseason both on defense and on special teams.
With Junior out since Week 1 -- and with an injury to rookie cornerback Christian Braswell -- the Jaguars have been light at cornerback in recent weeks. Campbell missed Week 7 with a hamstring injury, leading to fellow 2022 draftee Montaric Brown taking his spot in the starting lineup. Tevaughn Campbell was also elevated from the practice squad in Week 7.
"There’s a reason we took him a year ago and got him on our team. We like his skillset, he’s a long corner. You see some of the lack of experience out there let’s call it, but he played tough, he played physical, he made some tackles," Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson said about Brown's Week 7 performance vs. the Saints.
"The fourth down in the endzone at the end was huge, it’s going to give him a lot of confidence moving forward. We all know who Tyson Campbell is and he’s our guy, but to have solid backup players that can fill in and step up is exactly what I was talking to the team about, the next man up mentality. We got to fill in the gap. [Defensive Coordinator] Mike Caldwell did a nice job calling the game because we helped Buster a little bit with the safety help and things of that nature. I’m really pleased with how Buster played in that environment. That’s an extremely tough environment to go in there, of course they’ve got [Chris] Olave and Michael Thomas, some really good skill athletes there and he held up nicely."
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