Questions answered about Brian Thomas & the Jaguars offense for Fantasy Football after joint practice in Miami

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — The Jaguars’ last play in their joint practice against the Dolphins was their best one: Pressured second off of the snap, quarterback Trevor Lawrence avoided the pass rush in the pocket and fired a perfect downfield throw to stud wide receiver Brian Thomas in stride on an in-breaking route across the middle of the field. On this play, a Dolphins defender caught up with him, but in a real game, Thomas would have probably taken it to the house.

It was Brian Thomas that coach Liam Coen has been waiting to see.

“You see [Thomas] a little bit differently (than in team practices),” Coen said immediately following the team’s work on Thursday. It’s something we’ve obviously been told and have seen as well at different points during camp. You can definitely see his uptick change a bit, which was nice to see.”

“When the lights are bright, so to speak, he comes to play,” Lawrence added.

There were other plays: Thomas in the right corner of the end zone for a touchdown in red-zone drills; Thomas on a hitch for a 15-yard gainer. That’s the good stuff.

But there was some bad stuff too. Missed opportunities like Lawrence overthrowing Thomas twice, first in one-on-one drills and again in team drills, and Lawrence being off-target on a hitch route to Thomas, similar to the one they connected on.

On another play late in practice, Lawrence read the Dolphins “mask coverage” perfectly and fired a shot down the middle of the field to Parker Washington, who slowed up on the play as if he didn’t understand the coverage or think the ball would come his way.

Worst of all, Lawrence had two interceptions: one seemingly due to a miscommunication with rookie LeQuint Allen on a route, the other being a forced throw in the face of the Dolphins pass rush.

Was Lawrence at his best? No, but he showed plenty of what makes people hopeful about his skills. And perhaps he would have been better if rookie Travis Hunter had been out there. Hunter warmed up with the team but didn’t participate in any drills while nursing an oblique injury.

“Could he have probably gone? I think so,” Coen said of Hunter. “If this was Carolina, would he have probably played? Yeah.”

And the combination of Thomas and Hunter on the field, together, figures to be what makes the Jaguars offense really tough to stop. Thomas is the one who makes it all happen, though. There’s no doubt. Coen said it himself after practice — everyone knows who Thomas is. And so he helps the Jaguars win not only by making huge plays like the handful he had in practice, but also by drawing double-teams and opening things up for other receivers, like Hunter.

“That was something that we saw in L.A. with Cooper (Kupp) a lot. You can kind of dictate some things, knowing that, you know, maybe what their answer will be,” Coen said. “And then last year with Mike Evans, so much of our red zone game plan was based on him. If they double him, we should have numbers to the front side, or run it. If they single him, well, the ball needs to go there. And that was a lot of kind of what we tried to do, whether it was red zone, third down, whatever.

“So it’s a challenge for [Thomas]. It’s a challenge for us as coaches to be able to see him getting doubled and move him so that he doesn’t get a double, or let’s use him as a decoy to allow somebody else to get a matchup that may be favorable for us.”

What Coen didn’t say is that if Thomas’ drawing doubles leaves Hunter in a one-on-one, then theoretically Hunter should devour his competition. Hunter averaged a solid 4.9 yards after the catch per reception at Colorado last year with a tremendous 25% avoided tackle rate.

The duo figures to be a problem, but it’ll take Lawrence being accurate all the time for both to hit their ceilings. Thomas remains worthy of a top-15 or so selection while Hunter is safest in late Round 5/early Round 6. Hopefully, Hunter doesn’t play much defense, or if he does, it doesn’t cost him reps on offense.

As for Lawrence, he’s a great bet to make in Superflex leagues as the 15th or so quarterback off the board, but there’s a little more appeal for some other passers as far as late-round prospects go in one-QB formats. Don’t be surprised if Lawrence goes undrafted, but also don’t be surprised if you find yourself starting him in Week 2 against the Bengals. It might be his only good matchup in the first half of the year.

This might be where the Jaguars are still figuring things out. In fact, they are. Coen said so.

“We’re still right in the thick of it, honestly,” he said when asked if he’s shaped how his backfield committee will turn out. “We’ve seen great things from all four of those guys. Knowing that it’s gonna be darn near impossible to have four with the jersey on game day, that’s the challenge that we have to work through over the next few weeks.”

As a refresher, here are the four running backs leading the room in Jacksonville:

“Tuten, I thought he had a better day than he did yesterday at practice. He stepped it up a little bit better today,” Coen said. “[Etienne] and [Bigsby] got some quality work, but they’ve continued to kind of do the right thing for us, and then Quint, man, in pass protection continues to do a nice job.

“We’ve got some work to do over the next few weeks here before Carolina to figure out who’s going to get a jersey, and special teams has a lot to do with it as well.”

And like he did when talking about Thomas, Coen harkened back to his year in Tampa Bay for lessons he can apply to this year’s Jacksonville run game.

“What we learned last year in Tampa was you need three. Like, you need three good ones that you can feel like can go and step in and your offense doesn’t change,” Coen said. “That is kind of what we were trying to do with acquiring those two in the draft was make sure that we have a stable. Is it sometimes hard to keep them all happy? Sure, but I’d rather have more than less.”

Tuten truthers won’t like that, nor will Bigsby believers or Etienne enthusiasts. The real problem the Jaguars will have isn’t which guy to make inactive each week, it’s figuring out how to split the workload between the other three. Bigsby and Tuten seem best suited for run-downs right now. Etienne could play all three downs. Allen might only get a call-up if the Jaguars plan on passing a lot in a given week. But to expect any one of them to have a much bigger workload than the others is silly at this point.

If a guess had to be made, it would be that Etienne begins the year as the one who gets the most touches, followed closely by Bigsby, then Tuten.

But as the year rolls on, whoever the coaches get more comfortable with between Bigsby and Tuten will start to see more touches. A post-bye bump in Week 9 against the Raiders could be when Bigsby or Tuten really starts to get fed a little more. If you’re patient, they’ll be worth holding onto. Otherwise, look to Etienne as the rusher with modest appeal early in the year, especially in the first two weeks in favorable matchups against Carolina and Cincinnati. 

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