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Jaguars 2013 training camp day 5: Blaine Gabbert sits out, Denard Robinson picks it up

By Alfie Crow
Jacksonville Jaguars

JACKSONVILLE -- After day off from training camp, the Jacksonville Jaguars returned to the practice field in full pads for another day of training camp. Quarterback Blaine Gabbert came out with pads with the rest of the team, his right ankle heavily taped, but he participated in mostly just light individual drills and 7-on-7.

Training Camp Recaps: Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4

The quarterbacks: With Gabbert sitting out most of the drills on Wednesday, it gave Chad Henne the majority of the reps with the first team offense, but as Henne is wont to do, he didn't really make the most of his opportunity with Gabbert out. Mike Kafka took the majority of the second-team reps with Matt Scott getting some time and quite a bit of Denard Robinson in the wildcat and running read-option.

Run Drills

Henne wasn't necessarily poor on Wednesday, but he didn't really do anything to take hold of the extra reps he was getting. He had a few nice plays down the field, including a pass to Marcedes Lewis who abused Russell Allen on the route, but then he would miss on some other passes or throw into traffic, which is the same as it's been for the week.

Kafka was very underwhelming in his chance with Gabbert out, hitting mostly on short passes and handing the ball off. Matt Scott got some extra work as well, running some read-option, but hit just one of his five passes, albeit with a big drop by Tobais Palmer that would have been a long touchdown. He also picked up a huge gain on a keeper running the football.

The injured: As mentioned, quarterback Blaine Gabbert sat out with his ankle injury for much of practice. Outside of that, there were no new injuries and the usual suspects sitting out. There has been some talk however that a decision could be made on some guys like Taylor Price and Stephen Milhem, who don't seem to be making much progress. Look out for that in the future as we could see some more roster churn.

The depth chart: LEO end Andre Branch got a lot of reps with the first team defense, but didn't really do much. In one-on-one passing drills he was shut down completely by Luke Joeckel and the only time he did anything of significance was on a stunt where Joeckel didn't know both guys were coming and started late. In 11-on-11 drills Branch was run wide most of the plays where he was pass rushing, as it appears he just wants to try to beat everyone around the edge. He did have a nice play forcing an incomplete pass when he dropped into coverage, however.

"It’s doing a lot better, the biggest thing right now is just managing it and not doing anything too soon, but I’m feeling a lot better." -Blaine Gabbert on his injury

Allen Reisner continues to take reps with the first team as the second tight end and continues to make the most of his chances. Reisner has made some acrobatic grabs in team drills and seems to have a knack for getting open in the middle of the field.

The standouts: Denard Robinson had his best day of practice by far on Wednesday. He caught the football in drills and out of the backfield, as well as presented plenty of problems running the wildcat and utilizing read-option. As mentioned before, Robinson presents a problem in the formation that most teams haven't utilized. Typically teams have been using a running back in the formation, but Robinson ran a zone-read centric offense at Michigan, so he knows what to look for with the defensive ends and which gaps to pay attention to. Robinson did an excellent job at times letting the defense suck-in on the play and hand it off at the last moment. It wasn't all big plays though, as Robinson was popped by rookie linebacker LaRoy Reynolds when he tried to keep it up the middle. I think we will see a lot of it in the preseason, as it appears the team is getting him a lot of work at it, and it's going to be a nice wrinkle in the offense.

Pass rushing results: I tweeted out a little play-by-play of the pass rushing drills, so here are the results if you missed them.

Honorable mention: Rookie defensive tackle T.J. Barnes is a massive individual, looking all of his listed 6'7" 364 pounds, and has been a bit of a surprise. The knock on him coming out of Georgia Tech was that he didn't play up to his size, but since the pads have come on he's flashed a bit. He's quick for his size and is very powerful. If the coaching staff can get 4-5 plays a game out of him playing at his potential, he will be a guy to watch.

Quotables:

"We just had a little short meeting out there. What I talked to the guys was this; I told them I take responsibility for today’s practice. I know the way I designed practice it was a very, very challenging practice. I will tell you in what regards; We had some guys going out there like the first defense I saw them go out there and they were scheduled to go eight plays in a row or nine plays in a row. That’s challenging. Normally at this point in time you wouldn’t do too much of that. You might go four reps, five reps or put them in situations and let them know, but we jumped into a situation like that. To their credit they pushed, they pushed their tails through it and really covered my butt on it. It was good to see. We’ve got to do a better job of structuring practice."

Gus Bradley, on what he labeled a disappointing practice.

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