Jaguars' Pederson, Trent Baalke discuss 53-man roster. Here are our observations

The Jacksonville Jaguars' roster is set … for now.

The initial churning of the team's roster occurred this week after general manager Trent Baalke, head coach Doug Pederson and the rest of the staff cut the team from 91 to 53 players ahead of the start of the regular season.

After an impressive 2022 campaign that ended in a playoff run, this year's roster comes with high expectations. While they're confident in the work they and the team have done, it's a long season and plenty can change from now until January and it's too early to tell how they'll end.

“We’ll find out. It’s a long season, it’s a long season. Obviously, we know we got the quarterback. We feel like we got the skill around him and the pieces are there. It’s a long season and injury plays a part in this game and I don’t look past today honestly ... The one thing I will say with this team is they’re in the right frame of mind," Pederson said Thursday when asked if they put together a winning roster.

"They’re leaving today for the holiday weekend, eager to get ready and put training camp behind us and start focusing in on the regular season. I’m excited about that, but as far as where we can end up, that’s way too early to tell.”

Baalke echoed Pederson's sentiment, stating that they feel good about the group they have, but it's a long season and a lot of factors into the final outcome.

"It’s a good group of guys, they work hard, they’re close-knit both in the locker room and outside the walls of this building. We’re looking forward to getting rolling in a week against Indy, and we’ll take them one at a time from there.”

'Just how it worked out': Jaguars content with seven receivers on the roster

The Jaguars opted to carry seven receivers — Calvin Ridley, Christian Kirk, Zay Jones, Jamal Agnew, Tim Jones, Parker Washington and Elijah Cooks — on their 53-man roster, and it appears that'll stick. In doing so, the team was forced to make a decision about one of the team's other offensive skill groups — tight end and running back.

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At running back, Jacksonville will carry four backs — Travis Etienne, Tank Bigsby, D'Ernest Johnson and JaMycal Hasty — into the season, while they'll be short on tight ends with just three, including Evan Engram, Brenton Strange and Luke Farrell.

Typically, teams will carry three or four of each position, but Jacksonville has carried four through the last two years under Baalke's leadership.

"Sometimes, you’re going to go heavy in one position and you go light in another one or whatever it might be. It’s just how it worked out this year and we’re excited for the seven we have with depth there and a couple on practice squad too," Pederson said.

Cooks, an undrafted free agent rookie who made plenty of plays during the preseason, is thought highly of by the Jaguars' brass.

"I think he’s a young man that just kept showing up. He comes to work every day, he’s got a great attitude. He’s obviously got the physical tools, he’s 6’4” plus his long arms. He’s got a great catch radius, and he was making plays," Baalke said of the young wideout.

Cooks finished the season with seven catches for 146 yards.

Jaguars had a heads-up regarding Chris Claybrooks, excited about young DBs

When cornerback Chris Claybrooks was announced to have been placed on the league's Commissioners Exempt List on Tuesday, Jacksonville was forced to go younger within the secondary, retaining three young players with just nine games of game experience combined.

Still, this situation didn't catch the Jaguars off guard, Baalke said.

“Well, we knew that was coming. That wasn’t something that was just thrown on us. We had been monitoring it all along. We’ve been in contact with the league for some time on it, and knew it was coming so we were prepared for it," he said.

The preparation included retaining Gregory Junior, Montaric "Buster" Brown and Christian Braswell as the team's top three backups behind starters Tyson Campbell, Darious Williams and Tre Herndon. While Junior battled with Herndon throughout camp for the starting nickel job, Pederson said Thursday that Herndon would be the team's starter.

“Well, we feel good about all three of them, obviously, good enough to keep them on the 53 and feel good about their upside," Baalke said when asked about the young trio of Junior, Brown and Braswell, one of the team's sixth-round picks this year.

"Greg Junior is competing for that nickel spot right now, Montaric has done some very good things through camp and has earned that spot. Christian, a very talented young guy. He had a little injury bug early on, so he missed some time, but really excited about his potential.”

Pederson addresses injuries ahead of the season

The Jaguars have been hit with a bit of an injury bug ahead of the team's first game against the Colts.

While defensive lineman DaVon Hamilton's status is already known, Pederson was asked about a few of his teammates and their statuses, including defensive linemen Tyler Lacy and Foley Fatukasi, along with safety Antonio Johnson.

Injury updates via Jaguars brass:

• On Fatukasi: “He's progressing well, and he'll be back on Monday. He's done some football work here, just not with the team yet. He's off to the side and I think Monday we'll have a better picture as to where he's going to be going into next week."

• On Lacy: “He’s got a little hip deal going on right now. Again, we’re monitoring that and we’re day-to-day with him, we’ll see where he’s at on Monday when he comes back in the building.”

• On Johnson: "He’s progressing nicely, this weekend will be good to rest it a little bit. He’ll still get treatment these next few days, but from a running standpoint, we’ll see where he’s at Monday. We’ll monitor it again, but I would probably lean towards not playing in the first game just because the nature of the injury.”

While outside linebacker K'Lavon Chaisson missed the last two days of practice this week, Pederson said that his absence was excused as he and his significant other celebrating the birth of their child.

Parker Washington wasn't shopped, but teams were calling

Teams around the league understood that the Jaguars would have some tough decisions to make when it came to their receivers group. The Jaguars understood that too, which is partially why they kept seven of them.

Sixth-round draft pick Parker Washington was one receiver that teams around the league inquired about but, ultimately, the Jaguars shot all of the potential offers down.

“He was never on the trade block; we weren't actively shopping him. To answer your question directly, there were several teams that reached out, but it wasn't a situation that we felt comfortable with or didn't move the needle for us, let's put it that way," said Baalke.

Washington is expected to be a developmental receiver with return ability this season in Jacksonville.

Demetrius Harvey is the Jacksonville Jaguars reporter for the Florida Times-Union. You can follow him on X,  formerly known as Twitter, at @Demetrius82.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jaguars' Doug Pederson, Trent Baalke discuss team's 53-man roster