{"id":858282,"date":"2026-06-10T20:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/858282\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T20:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T20:51:15","slug":"from-jax-to-jacksonville-tanner-koziols-dog-gave-a-hint-of-his-nfl-destination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/858282\/","title":{"rendered":"From Jax to Jacksonville: Tanner Koziol\u2019s dog gave a hint of his NFL destination"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 Tanner Koziol to the Jaguars was meant to be long before the tight end knew it.<\/p>\n

Chalk it up to the family dog, Jaxxson. Yes, almost the same first name as Jacksonville\u2019s mascot, Jaxson de Ville. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, God works in mysterious ways, man. God always likes to throw little hints that he\u2019s there,\u201d Koziol said after Wednesday\u2019s second minicamp of the offseason. \u201cI got drafted\u2026they were like \u2018to the Jags\u2019, my friend goes, Jaxxson. My dog was right there\u2026He\u2019s 2 years old. [He got Jax] a long time before [being drafted] so it\u2019s kind of crazy how that plays out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well before Koziol was a target of NFL teams, he was an emerging tight end at Ball State University pulling in passes at the volume of a No. 1 receiver. Off the field, Koziol was also a big-time animal lover who was mourning the loss of the longtime family pet, a golden retriever named Bandit.<\/p>\n

Koziol\u2019s next pet, a golden retriever with a beautiful white coat, was welcomed to the family after Bandit\u2019s passing. The bond was immediate. Koziol grew up in Illinois so he was naturally a lifelong Bears fan. But when he got his new dog, it wasn\u2019t a name like Butkus or Sayers that fit.<\/p>\n

It was Jaxxson. <\/p>\n

Jaguars rookie tight end Tanner Koziol holds his dog, Jaxxson, a two-year-old golden retriever who he calls Jax. (Courtesy of the Koziol family)<\/p>\n

Jaxxson, or Jax for short, has been Koziol\u2019s best companion. Koziol said he made the connection instantly when Jacksonville selected him, and maybe, just maybe, he and the Jaguars were the plan all along. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a great dog before him, Bandit. Rest in peace,\u201d Koziol said. \u201cBut Jax, no dog has been my guy like Jax has. I love him and he\u2019s been awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Jax has been Koziol\u2019s best non-human friend, the rookie is hopeful to become one of quarterback Trevor Lawrence\u2019s best friends on the field. <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, I love watching football and more importantly I love tight ends and seeing what people do around the league,\u201d Koziol said. \u201cAnd now you have a variety of different tight ends within a tight end room and I\u2019m just really excited to be able to get better at every single aspect so that we can be as versatile and as dominant as possible from our room.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacksonville selected two tight ends in last April\u2019s draft, going with Texas A&M\u2019s Nate Boerkircher in the second round and Koziol from the University of Houston in the fifth. <\/p>\n

Boerkircher should be in line to see a larger role in an expanded tight end system alongside Brenton Strange, but Koziol offers significant playmaking upside. At 6-7 and 250 pounds, he projects more as the move tight end in Liam Coen\u2019s offense to more of the in-line ability of Boerkircher, who had 38 career receptions across five college seasons at Nebraska and Texas A&M. <\/p>\n

Koziol plays more like a receiver than a true in-line tight end. He had 94 catches and 839 yards (eight TDs) at Ball State in 2024 and added 74 catches for 727 yards (six TDs) in his lone season at Houston in 2025. With teams positioned to run far more two and three tight end looks this year, Koziol could be in line to contribute far more than a typical fifth-round pick. When minicamp and OTAs wrap up, Koziol said there will be little downtime. <\/p>\n

\u201cPrioritizing priorities, absolutely. When I go home, there\u2019s really no more video games. There\u2019s no more much of anything else right now. This is what I love. This is my priority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd other than talking to my family and occasionally my friends, diving into the playbook and prioritizing this, how I eat, how I sleep, how I recover through everything, just prioritizing the main thing and just having it be at the best of my ability. I know it\u2019s a cliche, but \u2026 if I do one thing that makes me 1% better in 20 different things, whether that be my food, sleep, recovery, I\u2019ll be 20% better the next day. It\u2019s just adding up those 1%s.”<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 Tanner Koziol to the Jaguars was meant to be long before the tight end knew…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":858283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,8013,76543,76542,189056,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-858282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-jaguars","tag-news4jags","tag-sports4jax","tag-tanner-koziol","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=858282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/858282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/858283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=858282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=858282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=858282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}