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Jacksonville Jaguars running back Leonard Fournette is set to sit out practice on Wednesday with an ankle injury. In Sunday’s loss to the Los Angeles Rams, Fournette went down with a non-contact injury that sent a sense of dread through EverBank Field, as many thought it might have been a knee injury.
Turns out it was an ankle injury and Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone insisted Fournette was cleared to return to the game, they just chose not to put him back in near the end because Chris Ivory was doing well.
Either way, the Fournette injury will be one to monitor all week leading up to Sunday’s AFC South showdown with the Indianapolis Colts. Fournette has been the engine keeping the Jaguars offense going and if he’s even limited on Sunday it will completely change the Jaguars chances of winning, in my opinion. While Chris Ivory has done well in spurts backing up Fournette, Fournette is very clearly a special player and forces teams to stack the box, more so than usual.
An ankle injury lingered and hampered Fournette his final season at LSU, so the situation leading up to the bye will be an interesting one to watch. The Jaguars, at some point, will probably want to reduce the carries Fournette is getting. He’s currently on pace for 347 carries on the season and has the second most carries in the NFL. If he stays on his current pace he will blow pas Ezekiel Elliot’s carries last season and even Adrian Peterson’s of 2015, easily.
While the Jaguars offense very clearly revolves around running the football with Fournette, it’s going to become a situation to monitor about how much the team wants to give him carries in his rookie season.