Jaguars wide receiver Allen Hurns hoping to return to form after injury-shortened 2016 season

On Friday, Jaguars receivers Allen Hurns and Allen Robinson were a few feet apart, pushing each other during a drill.

Robinson made a quick cut before catching a pass effortlessly and Hurns soon followed in a burst of speed, before cutting left and stretching out his hands before easily bringing the ball into his chest tossed by wide receivers coach Keenan McCardell.

While Robinson is driven to exceed what he did last season after leading the team with 73 catches for 883 yards and six touchdowns, Hurns is just hoping to return to form after his 2016 season ended with five games remaining because of a nagging hamstring injury that he initially injured during Week 12 against Buffalo.

By his own admission, Hurns said he didn’t meet up to the standard he expected last season, especially after signing a four-year, $40 million extension in June 2016. He made 35 catches for 477 yards and three touchdowns last season after having 1,031 yards receiving on 64 catches and 10 touchdowns in 2015.

“It starts with me; I have to improve,” Hurns said. “I know, last year wasn’t up to my standard at all. The way I played, I had drops, I wasn’t available six games and things like that. For the most part, just control what I can — be available and make plays when it comes my way.”

To get back on track, Hurns went through an extensive offseason workout regiment in Phoenix and Robinson joined him. Hurns said he put on some extra weight, but cut his body fat, and worked on improving his change of direction on routes and did plenty of strengthening exercises to avoid having hamstring problems.

“I’m ready to roll now,” Hurns said. “Yeah, I’m eager to see how it goes.”

But at wide receiver, there’s going to be plenty of competition and it has been clearly noticebable during the first few days of the team’s organized activities. The Jaguars have big plans for fourth-round draft pick Dede Westbrook to emerge as a slot receiver and Marqise Lee caught 63 passes for 851 yards last season, the second highest on the team behind Robinson.

Hurns is also working with a new receivers coach, McCardell, who played 17 seasons in the NFL, including six with the Jaguars.

“It’s been great,” Hurns said. “That’s a guy that’s played the game for a long time. He knows different things. It’s always good learning new things, especially being a pro. It’s never enough. You have to know different tools for different situations and things like that. He’s a really good coach. He’s on us a lot. He’s going to push us to be great.”

Although the Jaguars are expected to be more run-oriented this season because of first-round pick Leonard Fournette, quarterback Blake Bortles will still need to make plays and that will depend on not making turnovers and having reliable receivers.

“I am interested to see that group of receivers,” Jaguars coach Doug Marrone said Friday. “I think there’s going to be a pretty good push from the younger group because there’s some talent there, there’s some things that they have that maybe some of the older guys don’t with some speed so that’ll be interesting. I’m interested to see because I think there’s competition and I think there’ll be some tough decisions there, which I don’t have a problem with, but as far as Allen, Allen’s always been one of the toughest, hardest workers. A lot of it is going to be on the field and results and what they’re doing.

However, Marrone said he knows the least about Hurns among the returning receivers because he was injured last season after he took over as interim head coach.

Hurns said competition keeps him on the edge every day and he is looking forward to emerging.

“You have guys that are going to make plays, but you have to be that guy that’s going to make plays as well,” Hurns said. “I love it. It’s what keeps me going. In this league, they’re always trying to find someone to replace you and things like that. Each year, it’s going to be somebody and you have to stay on top of your game.”