The Brian Thomas Jr. trade chatter is still floating around, but the latest word out of ESPN’s Dan Graziano points in a very different direction: Jacksonville doesn’t sound like a team looking to shop him.
That matters because the rumors have had some fuel behind them. The Jaguars are 4-1 after beating the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5 in London, and they sit in command of the AFC South with a Week 6 matchup against the Houston Texans looming. The Texans, meanwhile, just made a splash of their own by trading for Marvin Harrison Jr., and that move helped stir up even more speculation around other young receivers around the league.
Still, Graziano’s reporting put the brakes on the idea that the Jaguars are open for business on Thomas.
"Jacksonville's Brian Thomas JR. is a name teams get most excited about," Graziano writes. "But so far, the Jaguars have not indicated a desire to trade him."
Even with Thomas sliding to third in the WR pecking order behind Parker Washington and Jakobi Meyers, and with Josh Cameron getting real snaps in the rotation, the Jaguars have not acted like a team ready to move on from him. That’s a big difference from a player who is simply buried on the depth chart and available.
Thomas was a 2024 first-round pick, just like Harrison, and the similarities make him an obvious name to watch in trade talks. But the situation in Jacksonville is not the same.
Thomas still brings value to this offense even if the numbers haven’t shown it. He remains the kind of outside target defenses have to account for because of his ability to stretch the field.
And that’s the bigger reason a trade never felt especially likely. The Jaguars are winning.
At 4-1, they’re not just in the playoff picture - they’re in the mix for a Super Bowl run. That makes it hard to see why they’d move a receiver who can still serve as a field-stretching piece and provide insurance if another wideout gets hurt.
Unless Jacksonville were somehow blown away by a first-round pick in return, a deal looks difficult to justify. Graziano suggested that kind of offer would be hard to refuse, though he also noted that it likely won’t come unless a team like the San Francisco 49ers gets really desperate.
So the rumor mill may keep spinning as the trade deadline approaches, but the update on Thomas is pretty clear: for now, the expectation should be that the 2024 first-round pick stays in Jacksonville.
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From Jacksonvilles perspective, that makes the trip to Houston feel winnable, especially with Barzilla also pointing to defensive injury effects that have complicated the Texans balance on that side of the ball. He flagged a few under-the-radar names worth watching and still called for a tight game, but his slight edge goes to the Jaguars, which says plenty about how much Houston still has to clean up before this rivalry feels settled again. [Read more 🡒]