Chris Rodriguez Jr. Camp Update — August 16: The Foot Kept Coen's Promise
2026 NFL Season · Monday, Aug 17
Chris Rodriguez Jr. worked extensively with Jacksonville's first team in the joint practice, earned public praise from Liam Coen for his downhill running, and is now listed as a co-starter. The foot that was the whole June question showed up on time.
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Chris Rodriguez Jr. spent Thursday running downhill at the Saints with Jacksonville's first team, and his head coach noticed. "He had a couple nice downhill runs today that you like to see," Liam Coen said, per John Oehser's Day 13 camp wrap at jaguars.com, which carried the headline that Rodriguez keeps improving. Rodriguez's own summary was better: "With the pads on, that's my game."
The June preview of Rodriguez said the story's twist was a foot. Jacksonville made him its first outside signing of the offseason — two years, 10 million base — for a clearly defined job: the downhill, short-yardage hammer on a 13-win team whose value lives at the goal line. Then a foot injury and June surgery cost him the entire offseason program while Bhayshul Tuten took every first-team rep, and the whole file came down to Coen's promise that Rodriguez would be full go come training camp.
Promise kept, and then some. Per Oehser, Rodriguez missed much of the offseason program but was working toward full participation by Day 13, handled extensive first-team work in the most physical practice of camp, and now sits on the depth chart as a co-starter alongside Tuten — which is more than the short-yardage role the June sketch assumed. The endorsements piled on: tight end Brenton Strange told reporters, "He's going to get downhill and he's going to run somebody over. C-Rod does that. So, he's a special guy." Rodriguez was even the man in the middle of the joint-practice scuffle, per Brent Martineau of Action Sports Jax, after a Saints defender shoved him and teammates intervened — August noise, but the kind that tends to happen around backs who finish runs.
Does the June read hold? CONFIRMED — the foot was the only question we flagged, it cooperated on exactly the timeline the coach gave, and the role is trending larger than the one we described. The old caveats have not vanished: he has never caught more than three passes in a season, so passing downs still belong to others, and a co-starter label in August is a competition, not a coronation.
Next week: the first-team carry split with Tuten, and whether Rodriguez gets short-yardage and goal-line packages when the starters play their first game snaps. We'll check next Sunday.
_Data via nflverse._
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