The Jacksonville Jaguars have named their team captains for the 2023 season.
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence, right guard Brandon Scherff, defensive lineman Roy Robertson-Harris, linebacker Foyesade Oluokun, and safety Andrew Wingard were all named captains.
This is Lawrence's third year as a captain for the Jaguars. It is the second year for Scherff and Oluokun, and the first year for Robertson-Harris and Wingard.
Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson lets the Jaguars' locker room vote on captain selections, picking two on offense and defense and one on special teams.
“He's confidence right now, just the ability to throw the ball on time, he's accurate, he's had a really good offseason, a really good camp, but I've seen that confidence, that growth, that maturity, in a young player," Pederson said about Lawrence, who is now a three-time captain despite being one of the youngest players on the roster. "He's still a young player and he's still learning the game but where he was a year ago to today is really night and day. He's so much further along, he's understanding the game, how to play the position the right way.
"[Quarterback Coach] Mike McCoy does a great job of coaching that into him and all the quarterbacks. To me, it's just that confidence, it's that leadership ability that he possesses and that's encouraging. He's continuing to grow, continuing to get better and he's also one of the quarterbacks that's been in the conversation for one of the top in the AFC, as he should be. But he knows he's got to put in the hard work, and he's got a great group of guys around him to help support that."
Robertson-Harris, Oluokun and Scherff were all big-money additions in free-agency by general manager Trent Baalke, with Robertson-Harris joining the team in the 2021 offseason and Oluokun and Scherff signing in 2022. Robertson-Harris signed an extension this offseason after a career season.
“Yeah, I think of him as one of the strong leaders of our football team. I think he’s really embraced the things that we started teaching last year in training camp," Pederson said about Robertson-Harris in August.
"Obviously, it probably wasn’t what he wanted to start the season but he was another player as the season went on that got better and better. Just understanding what the defense is, presented, and the techniques and everything that Coach Caldwell [Defensive Coordinator Mike Caldwell] and Buck [Defensive Line Coach Brentson Buckner] present to him. You just saw the fact that he works extremely hard in practice and that pays off to a lot of the young guys in that room. Even this offseason and now this training camp, he’s really taken his game to another level. That’s what we got to have in that D-line room.”
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