While Jaguars running back Travis Etienne was a first-round pick in 2021, he missed that season with a foot injury suffered in a preseason game.
But he posted an impressive 2022, netting 1441 yards from scrimmage — 1,125 rushing, 316 receiving on 35 catches — with five touchdowns. Etienne was on the field for 60 percent of Jacksonville’s offensive snaps, appearing in all 17 games with 12 starts.
How can he take a step forward in 2023? Head coach Doug Pederson addressed that on Wednesday.
“It’s one of the things that when we looked at his game this offseason back in February and March before the players came back, one of the things that we noticed was just him attacking the hole downhill,” Pederson said in his press conference. “Shoulders squared, attack the line of scrimmage, finding that crease where a lot of times you’ll see him try to bounce. We were able to show him and really emphasize shoulders-squared, anticipating where the hole could be, and just trusting that.
“He’s done an outstanding job, he’s bought into that. He sees it, we’ve been able to show it to him, he’s working on that in training camp right now.”
Pederson added that 2022 was effectively Etienne’s rookie year.
“You don’t just hand a guy a ball and let him go run, sometimes that happens but there’s that skill and ability to anticipate a hole,” Pederson said. “We always talk about speed through the hole not to the hole type of thing. He’s really embraced that this training camp. That, to me, is the next step for him and that 11-12-13, now the yards start creeping up and maybe he’s pushing 1600-1700 yards as a rusher.”
If Etienne can get those kinds of numbers as a rusher, he’d be pushing to lead the league in the category. Last year, Josh Jacobs finished No. 1 with 1,653 yards. In 2021, Jonathan Taylor was atop the league with 1,811.
