Jaguars rookie LB Ventrell Miller not fully cleared for minicamp

Jacksonville Jaguars coaches are getting to see the team’s 2023 NFL draft picks in action for the first time this weekend at a rookie minicamp. But fourth-round pick Ventrell Miller isn’t quite ready to participate fully just a few months after undergoing foot surgery.

On the day Miller was drafted, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport revealed that the former Florida linebacker played almost all of the 2022 season with a Jones fracture — a break to the fifth metatarsal bone on the outside of the foot — and had it repaired shortly after his collegiate career ended.

“I’m not going to put a timetable on him,” Jaguars coach Doug Pederson said of Miller in a Friday press conference. “This is the first time our trainers and our doctors have got their hands on him. We’ll put a plan together, beginning this weekend.

“I know he can do some things, he just can’t do a lot of full-speed work right now. It’s hard to say. I don’t want to put him in a box either, I just want to let our medical team take over from here.”

While Miller was limited in the practice session Friday, he was still a participant in several drills with his new teammates.

#Jaguars LB Ventrell Miller running through some drills in half-team stuff: pic.twitter.com/6HihNRSdsu

— Demetrius Harvey (@Demetrius82) May 12, 2023

Miller earned SEC Player of the Week honors twice during the 2020 season before missing most of the 2021 season due to injury and playing through his foot fracture in 2022.