Jaguars News | Jacksonville Jaguars - jaguars.com

JACKSONVILLE – A week or so in, Greg Olson is pleased. He likes the progress at a lot of positions. The Jaguars’ first-year offensive coordinator also once again said he likes the players’ intelligence – and the speed and efficiency with which they are learning the offense. And as far as the main storyline of Jaguars 2015 Training Camp, the progress of quarterback Blake Bortles? So far, so good. “I’ve seen improvement – (that’s) my thing with him,” Olson said Friday afternoon. “When we got here we said, ‘It’s important that we eliminate the dips as far as your progression.’ “I think he has kept the arrow going up and gotten better every day.” Olson, hired as the Jaguars’ offensive coordinator in January, covered several topics Friday in his first conversation with local media since training camp began. He discussed Tyson Alualu’s role at fullback, the competition on the interior of the offensive line and the progression of veteran wide receiver Arrelious Benn.As he did during the offseason program, he also said the offensive installation has gone well – and that a huge reason is the ability of players to grasp the concepts quickly. “I like the growth right now,” Olson said. “I mentioned to (Jaguars Head Coach) Gus (Bradley) the other day, ‘I think we have an extremely intelligent football team from position to position.’ That’s been really encouraging. We haven’t had to cut back at any point during training camp or even during the minicamps we had in June. “That’s been really an encouraging thing in the staff’s mind, that we have an intelligent team and we’ve been able to push them to the limits mentally.” Olson said a focus for the team’s scrimmage at EverBank Field Saturday will be to give Bortles the opportunity to run the offense in multiple series. “We’d like to give him a couple of opportunities during training camp to be out on the field on his own,” Olson said. “We’d like to give him a chance to do that for an extended period of time (Saturday).”Also on Friday Olson discussed: The competition at center, echoing Bradley’s sentiments early this week that the team would like to decide on a starter between Luke Bowanko and Stefen Wisniewski by Week 3 of the preseason. “We’ll wait until we get through these first two preseason (games), but if it does go longer then that’s what we’ll do,” Olson said, adding that while there is a chance Bowanko and Wisniewski each could get a start in Preseason Weeks 1 and 2 the coaches had not discussed that specifically. … Benn, saying the fifth-year veteran appears as fast now as when the two were with Tampa Bay together in 2010. Benn, a second-round selection by the Buccaneers in the 2010 NFL Draft, underwent reconstructive knee surgery in August 2013 while with the Philadelphia Eagles. “He hasn’t lost any speed, and he looks even faster to be honest with you,” Olson said. “He looks even stronger. He’s always been a strong runner, but he just looks a little smoother to me and more athletic.” *Alualu, saying the decision to use the veteran defensive tackle at fullback at times was about size and athleticism. “That’s a unique skillset that we don’t have (offensively) right now,” Olson said. “We’re going to experiment with it and see how it plays out.”

Jaguars News | Jacksonville Jaguars - jaguars.com

2015 Training Camp: Olson pleased with Bortles improvement