Big Cat Country
The regular season is officially here, with the Jacksonville Jaguars opening the Miller Electric Center practice fields for their first practice of the 2025 regular season. Here are our key takeaways from Monday’s Labor Day practice, Head Coach Liam Coen’s post-practice media availability, and some additional updates from the Carolina Panthers.
Head Coach Liam Coen kicked off Monday’s post-practice media availability with the announcement of the 2025 Jacksonville Jaguars permanent team captains.
Hainsey and Lewis being named as captains is notable, with both being new, free-agent additions to the roster. The remaining four captains have all been with the team for multiple seasons. Coen also confirmed that the captain agreement was reached via team vote:
“Yeah, we did a team vote before we left for the mini-break there and the nice thing is you didn’t have to fudge it to get kind of what you wanted. It was pretty clear. Pretty clear based on the votes and the ballots that these were the six guys that got the most. There was a ton of guys that you could’ve bumped up potentially, you just don’t have enough spots, you only have six of them, but it was cool to acknowledge the amount of people that did receive votes throughout the team. That was nice to see, especially some of the guys that may not have ever been voted for in the past that did receive some votes. It kind of shows that those guys are making an impact. It wasn’t hard to get to the six guys.”
While Coen did not directly provide an update on the injury front for Jacksonville, neither CB Montaric Brown nor OL Wyatt Milum participated in Monday’s practice, with Brown working out on the sidelines. Cole Van Lanen was again a full participant after returning to practice last Thursday. However, the Panthers have not been as fortunate as Carolina traded veteran WR Adam Thielen to the Minnesota Vikings last week, only to then days later place WR Jalen Corker on IR with a quad injury. The trade and subsequent injury opens the door for significant snaps for rookie Tetairoa McMillan, second-year WR Xavier Legette, and recently re-signed veteran WR Hunter Renfrow. Coach Coen touched on the Panthers’ wide receiver room’s recent shakeup:
“I think T-Mac being a rookie, we know we liked him coming out of the draft, we know what some of those traits are that he can do with some of the one-on-one opportunities as well. And then Legette can really run. Big, physical receiver. Hunter Renfrow has won in the slot here for years. What does that look like? I think they’ll probably remain within what they do. I don’t know if it’ll...
