"Blaine Gabbert felt strongly enough about the point that he repeated it three times.

"Dave's the starting quarterback," Gabbert said of Jaguars starter David Garrard. "He's a heck of a football player. People say he's not, that's wrong. Some of the throws he can make and makes on a daily basis are extremely impressive."

With two padded practices completed by Tuesday morning, Gabbert had impressed his teammates, coaches and onlookers as he's worked mostly with the second team.

The rookie quarterback will get some opportunities with the first team. But the Jaguars never intended to rush Gabbert into being a starter, and that plan hasn't changed.

"We want to make sure we establish a real sound foundation in terms of his development and understanding of what the mental answers are to the game," Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio said. "We know he can physically take off and run. We know he has an arm to put it in there, but the mental part of it, and he's a bright guy, so that should come quickly. But that's really, in my opinion, the most important part of playing quarterback."

One aspect of Gabbert's transition might have been overblown, the rookie thinks.

He doesn't see much difficulty in adjusting from working out of the shotgun to taking snaps under center.

"The NFL is becoming more and more of a shotgun offense," Gabbert said. " … The only thing that changes is you get a snap from under center, which I think is easier. You don't have to focus on the shotgun snap because there's a lot of things that can go wrong there."

Gabbert estimated about 50 percent of the snaps he's taken in training camp have been in a shotgun formation.

"Being a backup quarterback in the NFL is the easiest job in the world because everybody thinks you're better than the starting quarterback, but that couldn't be more wrong," Gabbert said. "That changes real quick when you start playing on the football field.""