The Sports Xchange

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A lighter, leaner, meaner Chris Clemons followed through on his promise to be in attendance for the Jacksonville Jaguars mandatory minicamp on Tuesday, his first appearance of the offseason after the defensive end skipped all nine of the team’s OTA practice sessions.

Clemons was the focus of attention on the field during the Jaguars’ two-hour practice on Tuesday and held center court in the locker room afterward. It was his first public comments since the end of the 2014 season. One of Clemons’ points of emphasis was that he stayed in good physical shape, especially when considering he’s shed 15-18 pounds since last year, weighing in at 248 when he reported in on Monday.

“Going out today on the grass with the fellas was a great feeling,” Clemons said. “My body feels better than it did last offseason. I played last year at 255, 260 pounds in some games and I felt my productivity went down. My thing this year was to come back lighter and leaner so I can go out and play better than I did last year.”

As for his absence from the team’s OTAs and being the only healthy player on the 90-man roster who skipped out on them, Clemons said he and Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley talked on a regular basis and that Bradley knew that this was how the veteran defensive end prepared himself for the coming season.

Bradley was defensive coordinator in Seattle for four seasons prior to his accepting the Jaguars’ head coaching spot in 2013.

All six players interviewed during the team’s OTAs about Clemons’ absence unanimously agreed that the 34-year-old, 11-year veteran would be ready to play once the season started and that they had no beef with his absence. Clemons echoed those thoughts on Tuesday.

“My teammates understand me and I respect all of my teammates and treat them all the same,” he said. “Whether I’m here or not here, I still stay in contact with all of them. There was nothing different (this offseason).”

–Tight end Julius Thomas and quarterback Peyton Manning didn’t become connected until their second year together in Denver. Thomas would like to move that timetable up a year when it comes to getting comfortable with Jaguars quarterback Blake Bortles.

In Manning’s first year (2012) in Denver, Thomas’ second season, the pair never combined for a single pass completion, despite Thomas starting four games.

But by their second year together, they became a potent combination. Thomas was on the receiving end of 65 Manning passes, good for 788 yards and 12 touchdowns. All three figures are higher than any Jaguars tight end has ever recorded in a single season.

That’s why Thomas is continually asked about his relationship with Bortles. His latest answer on Tuesday indicates that things are becoming tighter between the two.

“It’s been good. I’m definitely getting an opportunity to know him as a man on and off the field,” Thomas said. “I’m very impressed with his work ethic. He’s not cutting corners, he really wants to come out here and play at a high level and he’s doing things that it’s going to take to do that. I’m very impressed with that and he’s still young going into his second year so he’s going to keep improving and we’re going to keep doing all we can as a team to help him out.”

That of course prompted the next question to Thomas about how long it took for him and Manning to get on the same page with each other. Thomas somewhat dodged the question, or at best, talked around it.

He said, “That’s an interesting question. I think last year we had a better relationship as far as understanding each other than we did the first year I was playing. It’s always growing. Chemistry is just like anything else in life; the longer you know somebody the more you understand them. I guess that’s the question of it just takes time. You’re continuing to learn each other, continuing to get better.”

–Bradley had a message for his team following the first day of mandatory minicamp for veterans on Tuesday: This is what players could expect in six weeks for the start of training camp. Bradley’s message wasn’t about the practice schedule or format. Instead it was about the heat. Unofficial temperature readings at the Jaguars’ practice facility approached triple figures, even though practice started at 9:30 am.

“We usually don’t talk about the heat at training camp, but I thought today would be a great time to talk about it with our team, just about, ‘This is what you can expect in training camp and we have to be ready for it,'” Bradley said afterward. “I think the challenging part for our team was the time period from June 20 to July 27. There’s an offseason that happens after the season and another one now, but we have to treat them differently.

“It’s not a time to take a month off and then start to come back and get your workouts in. You can take a few days off, but right after that get back to work and I think this was a great message for the heat and the temperature that we practiced in today and how important it is, not only the hydration, but sleep, nutrition, and that’s what we had the meeting with after the team to say, ‘All right, you just felt it and some guys tightened up and you know what it can do,’ so we wanted to take advantage of that. Overall, I was very pleased with the effort.”

The hot, humid temperatures that the Jaguars endure throughout training camp helps prepare them for the first couple home games in September each year, a time when the temperatures can still be brutally hot. Opposing teams, especially those from the Midwest or Northeast generally have a harder time in adapting to such conditions.

The Jaguars might not be able to get much of an advantage this year however. Their first two games are at home in September, but against the Carolina Panthers and the Miami Dolphins, two teams that also go through similar extended hot spells in August and September.

–Bradley was singing the praises of defensive end Jared Odrick following Tuesday’s first day of the team’s three-day minicamp. Odrick was one of the first players that Jacksonville signed during free agency, latching on to the former Miami Dolphins defensive lineman quickly. Odrick started 41 games for the Dolphins in five years, including all 16 in the 2014 season.

“He’s really come on. He’s stacked a couple of good practices together,” Bradley said. “I say that watching this practice. I haven’t seen the tape, but I know up until this point, I was thinking of that as far as guys. I know he started off a little slow, getting used to the tempo of how we do things, but the last couple of weeks now, he’s really picked it up and we’re very pleased with him.”

Odrick will play the strong-side end spot opposite Chris Clemons. The Jaguars feel he should be able to consistently hold the edge against the run while providing some rush. They felt so good about signing him that the next day they released seven-year veteran Red Bryant who had started all 16 games for the Jaguars in 2014.