Jacksonville Jaguars 2022 Positional Review: Safety

As Jacksonville Jaguars fans start gearing up for the heart of the 2022 NFL offseason now that the NFL Draft has concluded and for the most part free agency is done, we can start taking a look at the team’s positional groups and what to keep an eye out for in training camp and the preseason. The Jaguars offseason OTA workouts took place May 23rd and 24th, May 26th, May 31st and June 1st, June 3rd and then end with a session from June 6th through Junes 9th. Now the team will have a mandatory mini-camp from June 13th through the 15th with the official start of training camp shortly after that, which will be taking place at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville, due to the construction at the team’s practice facility, which will not be completed until 2023.

Moving into looking at the position groups we will take a look at a unit that should be a bit better than last season, the safety group.

Expected Starters: Andre Cisco, Rayshawn Jenkins

While the Jaguars starting safety group is going to just be different by one player in 2022, it potentially will be a huge difference. Most of last season Andrew Wingard was one of the starting safeties and left a lot of people wondering why rookie Andre Cisco wasn’t getting some playing time with Wingard struggling. Urban Meyer got fired, some rookies finally got playing time and someone like Cisco was able to shine. The expectation in year two is Cisco is going to add a dynamic player to the back end of the defense.

Expected Backups: Andrew Wingard, Daniel Thomas, Ayo Oyelola, Rudy Ford

The backups for the Jaguars safety group, I would argue, is really good. Rudy Ford is kind of a hybrid player who plays inside as a quasi-linebacker/nickel corner on some downs and has shown a penchant for being a playmaker. Wingard, while an average at best starter, is a really good special teams player and as a backup should shine.