Jaguars Activate CB Gregory Junior, Waive JaMycal Hasty

The Jacksonville Jaguars will take on the San Francisco 49ers in Week 10 with their entire defense healthy for the first time in 2023, with the last piece being the activation of cornerback Gregory Junior on Saturday.

Junior opened the year as the Jaguars' top reserve cornerback after a standout training camp and preseason, but a hamstring injury kept him sidelined for the majority of the first-half of the season.

The second-year corner was originally selected by Jacksonville in the sixth round (197^th overall) in the 2022 Draft.

With Junior now activated off injured reserve, the Jaguars will have their entire secondary depth chart with starting cornerbacks Tyson Campbell, Darious Williams and Tre Herndon, with the group rounded out by Junior and Montaric Brown. 

With the recent returns of Dawuane Smoot and DaVon Hamilton, the Jaguars now have all of their key starters and top backups healthy for the first time this season.

Through Week 9, Jacksonville is tied for the most takeaways in the NFL with 18. The Jaguars are tied for the second most passes defensed in the NFL this season with 51.

With Junior activated, the Jaguars waived No. 4 running back JaMycal Hasty, leaving the Jaguars with Travis Etienne, Tank Bigsby and D'Ernest Johnson on the roster.

“Yeah, I think we need to continue to involve as many people as we can," Jaguars offensive coordinator Press Taylor said this week. 

"Now, Travis has played well and has produced for us in critical moments. He’s rattled off a bunch of explosive plays, so there’s even times it’s, ‘Hey, we’re going to be in empty, we could put somebody else in here.’ Then, all of the sudden, Travis has a 56-yard touchdown in Pittsburgh in the rain. He’s a guy that’s capable of breaking the game open at any point in time, but yes, we’d love to take a little bit of physical wear and tear off of him and get somebody else going in those situations. That’s just on us to put them in situations, put those guys in there and let them get rolling a little bit with the speed of the game.”