Jaguars OL Bowanko: Losing starting job was 'a learning experience'

“We knew we had to pick a starter and at that point in camp, Stef was playing better, he was running the offense, he knew what he was doing and he had it down pat,” said Bowanko. “Even from my end, there was no animosity towards Stef or towards anybody. It was never awkward. With offensive line play you can kind of tell who should be starting, most of the time. From where I was at, at that point in camp, I wasn’t there yet. It wasn’t weird at all."

“It was a learning experience,” said Bowanko. “It was difficult mentally, just because if you would have asked me (before the season) to describe a successful second year, obviously I would have said ‘Starting at center and getting better from where I was (my rookie) year.’ But when that immediately changed, when I started moving around a bit, it changed my goals for myself. It took me a little while to adjust back to more reasonable goals.”

“Obviously with one position, you can specialize in that position and it can make football a lot easier,” said Bowanko. “But the more you can do – I’m not here to stomp my feet on the ground to be the starter – I want to make myself an asset to the team. If playing all five [positions] is how I do that, then I’m glad to. But having not played tackle since high school to this year, jumping into it with some pretty good defensive linemen, it was an adjustment. So hopefully I’ll have a head start on that when it comes to next year.”