The Jacksonville Jaguars are taking it easy as they return wide receiver Calvin Ridley to the football field. The former Alabama standout hasn’t played in an NFL game since Oct. 24, 2021, and until he began the Jaguars’ offseason program, he hadn’t practiced with an NFL team since before that.

With the Jaguars in the OTA portion of their offseason workouts, Jacksonville coach Doug Pederson said the staff was seeking to make sure Ridley didn’t try to do too much too soon.

MORE NFL:

· BRONCOS’ JERRY JEUDY KNOWS ‘THERE’S BETTER DAYS AHEAD’

· BROWNS EXPECT AMARI COOPER TO BE FULLY HEALTHY FOR TRAINING CAMP

· WOULD THE LIONS LET FIRST-ROUNDER JAHMYR GIBBS RETURN KICKOFFS?

“Just want to be careful with him,” Pederson said on Tuesday. “He is coming off — he hasn’t played in a while, plus the injury, so we’re just trying to be careful with him.

“He’s done an outstanding job for us. He’s the type of guy that you have to kind of pump the brakes with. He wants to go so much and so fast and so hard out there at practice that we just kind of have to pump the brakes and just tell him, ‘Hey, now’s not the time.’

“But he’s doing a great job. He’s picking up the offense well. The times he’s working with (quarterback) Trevor (Lawrence), they’re on the same page, they’re connecting, and those are good things to see right now in the offseason.”

Ridley missed the 2022 NFL season while serving a gambling suspension imposed by the league, which determined that he bet on NFL games in November 2021. Ridley played only five games in 2021, when he left the Atlanta Falcons to focus on his “mental wellbeing.”

RELATED: CALVIN RIDLEY JUMPS ON ZERO AFTER NFL RULE CHANGE

In his most recent full season, Ridley said, he played most of the 2020 campaign with a broken bone in his foot, although he was told at that time he had a bone bruise.

Pederson said the Jaguars weren’t expecting any problems from Ridley’s old foot injury.

“Just more or less just being cautious with him,” Pederson said. “And, really, just making sure that he’s — again, he hasn’t played a ton of football and just want to make sure he’s ready to go for camp.”

Jacksonville won’t take the same precautions with Ridley in training camp that they are now, Pederson said, as the Jaguars close in on their season-opening game against the Washington Commanders on Sept. 11.

Jacksonville is in the final portion of its offseason program, when teams are allowed to conduct up to 10 days of organized team practice activity, usually referred to as OTAs. The Jaguars have held their first four OTA practices and are scheduled to be back on the field on Wednesday. No contact work is permitted during these practices, but teams can expand their offseason workouts to include 7-on-7, 9-on-7 and 11-on-11 drills.

A mandatory minicamp also can be held during this period, which Jacksonville has scheduled for June 12-14 before breaking for the summer.

Since entering the NFL from Alabama as the 26th selection in the 2018 draft, Ridley has 248 receptions for 3,342 yards and 28 touchdowns in 49 games. He became the fifth player during the AFC/NFC era to reach those figures in his first 49 games.

As a freshman, Ridley had 89 receptions for 1,045 yards and seven touchdowns for Alabama’s 2015 CFP national championship team. In his final season with the Crimson Tide, Ridley had 63 receptions for 967 yards and five touchdowns for the 2017 CFP national championship team.

FOR MORE OF AL.COM’S COVERAGE OF THE NFL, GO TO OUR NFL PAGE

Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.