JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Jaguars’ offense was every bit as much Dr.Jeckyll and Mr.Hyde targeting the middle of the field in 2025. In the early going, the team seemed to really struggle, lowlighted by countless drops before Parker Washington and Jakobi Meyers turned into late-season demons.
Among the struggles, however, was Brian Thomas Jr., particularly with the drops.
Thomas had a case of the dropsies this past season. His eight drops finished tied for third most in the NFL, despite missing three games due to injury. That’s certainly part of the equation for Thomas as a wrist injury bothered him to start the season and could have contributed to his drops.
There’s some pretty good evidence to back that claim up too as Thomas had just one drop after returning. Compare that to the seven drops he had across his first eight games and the improvement is certainly evident. His scarily bad 18.9% drop rate to start the season improved to just 5.3% to end it.
As much as Thomas struggled over the middle in 2025, it was actually an area in which he excelled during his rookie season. In 2024, Thomas caught 87% (41/47) of his short and intermediate targets over the middle to the tune of 490 yards and three touchdowns. He had an insane NFL Rating of 131.4 with just two drops, according to Pro Football Focus.
His 566 yards on in-breaking routes was actually 6th most in the NFL among receivers, while his six touchdowns ranked 2nd. What was a strength in 2024, quickly became a weakness just 12 months later.
Let’s compare to how he did in 2025. It’s far less pretty as Thomas hauled in just 50% of targets (13/26) for 223 yards, zero touchdowns and five drops. His targets over the middle were nearly cut in half as well.
Something just as concerning as the drops was Thomas’ ability, or rather inability, to separate.
In 2024, he led the NFL in Route Win % on slants and was 97th percentile on posts, according to Fantasy Points. He was simply elite. In 2025, however, Thomas was credited with zero route wins on slants. In just one season, he went from the 100th percentile to the 0th.
It’s those same struggles over the middle that led to his severe decline in yards after the catch.
Separation struggles combined with fewer targets on in-breaking routes means there’s just far less room for Thomas to work with.
Thomas finished 4th in 2024 with 591 yards, including a wild 6.8 YAC per reception. But that ability to create with the ball in his hands just wasn’t there in 2025, amassing just 177 yards and 3.7 YAC per reception.
Something else that should be noted was an apparent role change for Thomas when he returned from injury. He went from the team’s primary receiver to more of a deep ball specialist.
His average depth of target skyrocketed from 13.1 in Weeks 1-9 to 18.2 from Weeks 13-18 as Washington and Meyers picked up the bulk of targets.
Part of that simply might be a result of Thomas’ struggles early on. Washington and Meyers stepped up for the Jaguars in a big way in Thomas’ absence, particularly thriving over the middle.
It’s tough to go away from that when it was clearly working. The drops went away and Thomas showed glimpses of his former self down the stretch, but the consistency still wasn’t there.
The question is, can Thomas hit the reset and get back to his former self? Luckily for Jaguars’ fans, this is a 23-year old who’s already shown plenty of juice. As underwhelming as Thomas’ 2025 season was, he still was on pace for 856 yards if he had played a full season.
I’ve previously discussed the Jaguars’ separation struggles, but that’s truly what the Jaguars need most out of Thomas. With a healthy offseason in Coen’s system and another year with Lawrence, he might be the last piece to a dangerous passing attack that was humming to end the 2025 season.
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