JACKSONVILLE - Jacksonville Jaguar coach Doug Marrone took an interesting take on the recent round of organized team activies (OTAs).

“We haven’t practiced,” Marrone said early Friday afternoon following OTA 6 at EverBank. “I know you guys look out there and you think that’s practice … I don’t. I don’t call it practice. I really don’t.”

Ironically, the Jags practices have been very vigorous, action-packed and sometimes contentious despite the players not wearing pads and not engaging in full contact. For that, Marrone remained optimistic yet realistic about what he was seeing on the field.

“I don’t know if we can hold on to a ball when we get hit,” said Marrone. “I don’t know how we’re going to react when it’s a live rush and the guy can hit the quarterback how the quarterback’s going to react.”

On the field, quarterbacks Blake Bortles and Chad Henne were joined by Brandon Allen out of Arkansas and all three were capable of moving the ball downfield in scrimmage situations.

In passing drills, Bortles was victimized by some dropped passes, but there were some nice catches downfield from veterans Marquise Lee and Allen Robinson with first year free agent Jamal Robinson out of Louisiana-Lafayette showing some promise.

In the backfield, rookie first rounder Leonard Fournette continues his input into the Jags system with a nice flurry of out passes getting attention from the Jags defensive units.

On the offensive line, Alabama rookie Cam Robinson was imposing with his size; 6-6, 320 lbs, but showed some good footwork in drills with veterans Tyler Shatley and Luke Bowanko with coaches pushing for fast feet. Starting center Brandon Linder was taking reps as a guard.

“The good thing is when Brandon played guard here he was one of the top guards in the league and when he played center he was one of the top centers in the league,” said Marrone.

On defense, middle linebacker Paul Posluszny was pushing his ranks; Telvin Smith and Jacksonville University rookie Justin Horton getting reps in coverage and reads.

Mostly, Marrone commented that training in the heat and humidity of Jacksonville is a double-edged sword for the Jags.

““I’m always looking for tough days, honestly,” said Marrone. “That way, we get ourselves acclimated, and get ourselves to push through it. The heat’s going to be turned up a little bit more when we come back in five weeks. It gives our guys a lot of incentive to come back in shape so we can get a lot of things done.”

Marrone expected the team to measure their conditioning and readiness to get to work in five weeks.

“When we put the pads on, we can’t go back to the things we’re coaching now: fundamentals, assignment and drills,” said Marrone. “The more we have to go back and coach those things in training camp the harder it’s going to be to get where we want to be.”