Bhayshul Tuten Camp Update — August 16: Co-Starter Is Half a Job
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 17
Jacksonville now lists Bhayshul Tuten as a co-starter alongside Chris Rodriguez Jr., and it was Rodriguez who owned the week's practice reports. The June warning that this job still had to be won is aging well.
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Bhayshul Tuten is listed as a co-starter, and the prefix is the whole story. John Oehser's Day 13 camp wrap at jaguars.com puts Tuten on the top line of the Jacksonville backfield alongside Chris Rodriguez Jr. — and it was Rodriguez, not Tuten, who filled the week's notebooks.
The June preview made one argument about Tuten: the summer enthusiasm was betting on a job he had not won. His rookie year was a rotation role, 83 carries behind Travis Etienne, and nearly half his scoring came from a touchdown rate that does not survive a real workload. The first-team reps he took all spring came partly by forfeit, because Rodriguez, the veteran Jacksonville signed to a two-year deal, was rehabbing a foot. We said the bet would be settled in August, against a healthy Rodriguez.
August arrived, and so did Rodriguez. In Thursday's joint practice with the Saints, Rodriguez worked extensively with the first team, drew public praise from Liam Coen for his downhill running, and got a teammate endorsement from Brenton Strange, all per Oehser's Day 13 wrap. Tuten, meanwhile, generated no items of his own in this week's practice or game coverage. His most recent press is from the first week of camp, back in late July, when SI's Jaguars On SI ran a winners piece on his stock and Yahoo billed a strong opening statement — headlines we could not verify beyond their titles, and pre-window besides. Saturday's game settled nothing either: the veterans rested, and rookie J'Mari Taylor carried 22 times in the comeback win over New Orleans.
Does the June read hold? CONFIRMED — we said this was a committee Tuten had to win, and the committee is now official on the depth chart while the other half of it gains momentum. To be fair to Tuten, silence is not failure; co-starter on a 13-win team's depth chart is more than he held at any point last season, and his strong first week of camp is part of how he got there.
Next week, one thing matters: the first-team carry split between Tuten and Rodriguez in practice reports, and who starts when the starters actually play. We'll check next Sunday.
_Data via nflverse._
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