Zay Jones wants back in — Jaguars take a look at a familiar face

Adam Schefter dropped the news first, and it took SleeperNFL about 6 minutes to confirm it: Zay Jones was back in the building with the Jaguars. Not a tryout, not a rumor floated by some burner account — an actual visit, with actual football people, ahead of training camp.

For Jags fans with a memory longer than a news cycle, this one comes with baggage. Jones signed a 3-year, $24 million deal with Jacksonville back in 2022, and people ripped GM Trent Baalke for it at the time. Then Jones went out and caught 82 balls for 823 yards and 5 touchdowns that first season, which shut a lot of people up. Year 2 fell apart with injuries, he got cut in a cap-saving move, and that seemed like the end of the story.

It wasn't. Jones bounced to Arizona, where things went from bad to worse — 19 games over two seasons, and last year he tore his Achilles in November, which is about as brutal an injury as a receiver can have. He's 31 now, without a team since March, and this Jaguars visit is reportedly the first workout or meeting he's had with anybody since free agency opened.

Nobody's calling this a starting job. Jacksonville's receiver room is already one of the deeper units in the league, so if Jones lands here it's as camp depth and insurance — the kind of move you make in case Parker Washington's contract situation gets messy or somebody tweaks a hamstring in August. But there's something to the fact that, coming off a torn Achilles at 31 with zero interest from anyone else, the first door that opened was the one he already knows.

Whether that turns into a contract or just a nice reunion lunch remains to be seen. Camp battles are about to get real in Jacksonville, and a healthy Zay Jones — even in a depth role — is a name worth watching once pads come on.