The Jacksonville Jaguars have been the NFL’s busiest team at the trade deadline, and after a flurry of Monday moves, they’ve made another call: Brian Thomas Jr. isn’t going anywhere.
Jacksonville already landed Jessie Bates III, Davon Godchaux, and Jordan Davis on Monday, giving James Gladstone a trio of defensive upgrades before deadline day even arrived. With those deals in place, the attention turned to Thomas and whether the Jaguars would cash in on the wideout. They won’t.
According to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler, the Jaguars have told other teams Thomas will stay put.
"The Jaguars plan to keep Brian Thomas Jr. through the trade deadline, per sources," Fowler reports. "They have relayed that to interested teams."
That decision fits the way Jacksonville has approached this deadline. The Jaguars are making win-now moves, and after adding Bates III and Davis, moving Thomas would have run against that plan. A team pushing for a Super Bowl run has little reason to send a receiver away, especially not to a possible playoff opponent.
There was expected interest in Thomas from teams such as the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, but the Jaguars are holding firm. Even with Thomas sitting third on the depth chart at best, with Josh Cameron and Travis Hunter also in the mix, Jacksonville appears to value his insurance too much to part with him.
That matters if injuries hit. If Parker Washington or Jakobi Meyers were to go down, the Jaguars would feel the loss of Thomas quickly. Keeping him gives the roster another option as the season stretches on.
The market likely played a role too. A second-round pick may have been difficult to get, and even a third-rounder might not have been guaranteed. For Jacksonville, that probably wasn’t enough to justify a move.
So while other teams may have hoped Thomas would become available, the Jaguars have chosen the safer path. For a club chasing a title, keeping a receiver like Thomas is the kind of move that makes sense.
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