Jaguars
Anthony Campanile is entering his first year as the Jaguars’ defensive coordinator on new HC Liam Coen‘s coaching staff. DE Josh Hines-Allen said Campanile has been great and has a visible love for the game.
“Coach Camp has been awesome,” Hines-Allen said, via the team’s YouTube. “You step in that meeting room, you’re going to expect one thing, it’s the passion, it’s the love. It’s the love of the game he has. Calais (Campbell) always told me, if you want to be great at something, you gotta love it, you gotta respect it. And so for me, he respects the game, he loves it, he loves the team, he loves the players that are playing for him.”
Hines-Allen said they are focused on building a strong defense by having great communication and playing “good situational football.”
“It starts right now,” Hines-Allen said. “Coach Camp has a saying, talk is cheap. We can talk about how good we’re going to be or how legendary our defense or individual players can be, it’s all about the work we put in every day. The communication that we have in the red zone, backed up situations, playing good situational football. Knowing what everybody has to do, being in the right place, and it starts out here.”
Hines-Allen wants them to continue stacking consistent performance in practice as they build up toward the season.
“If we can stack great days out here, if we can keep doing it, and then we put the pads on, and we can continue to be physical up front, linebackers flying downhill, DBs staying in the backfield because we don’t kneed them because we’re stopping the run up front, and we got pass rushers up front. It’s all about that trust.”
Steelers
Steelers LB Cole Holcomb is back on the field after 18 months as he recovered from a significant knee injury. Holcomb believes he could’ve played in their postseason game a year ago, but admitted it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea.
“I felt good, but it probably wouldn’t have been the best idea,” Holcomb said, via Nick Farabaugh of Penn Live. “But I felt ready if they needed me. If they needed me, I would have been ready, but everyone stayed healthy.”
Holcomb reflected on the dark moments during rehab, where he realized he had to put serious work in to get back on the field.
“It was a serious injury. You all saw it. It was pretty gruesome. They were emphasizing how important the rehab was going to be. If guys don’t take it serious and don’t put the work in, they won’t make it back. If you put the work in, you do the extra stuff, you come every day no matter how bad you don’t want to, you can come back from this.”
Titans
Second-round OLB Oluwafemi Oladejo is new to his position after starting out as an off-ball linebacker at UCLA before transitioning to edge rusher in the past couple years. He said his goal is to become a “better pass rusher and set the edge.”
“It’s a lot different, but I’ve learned a lot of the basics of pass rushing and playing the edge,” Oladejo said via Turron Davenport of ESPN. “Continue to be a better pass rusher and set the edge. There’s still a lot to improve on. I feel good. But not satisfied.”
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