Wide receiver Marvin Jones missed all of last season because of ankle and foot injuries, but he was able to rejoin the team for offseason practices and was on the field for the first couple of days of training camp.
Things have taken a negative turn, however. Jones hasn’t practiced at all this week because of what coach Marvin Lewis described as leg soreness and the coach said Thursday that he was concerned with Jones getting the “timing and repetition” down after so much time on the shelf the last two years.
Lewis said that Jones has to “be like everybody else and find a way to get out there and get going.”
“Marvin’s got to get to practice if Marvin wants to get to play,” Lewis said, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. “That’s part of it. He hasn’t played football for us in a year, basically. He had two or three practices or whatever he had last year in the fall. Marvin’s got to get prepared to play NFL football.”
The Bengals are counting on Jones restoring what they lost from their passing game while he was on the shelf last season, but they won’t get it if he tries to push too far too fast this summer and winds up hurting himself again. They also might not get it if he doesn’t have enough time to re-acclimate himself to the offense, however, so they’ll have to try to strike the right balance in the coming days and weeks if they’re going to make sure Jones is productive on the field when it counts.
