Ian Hartitz dives into the Jacksonville Jaguars team preview and provides the fantasy football outlook for the 2025 NFL season.

The Doug Pederson era ended with a whimper in 2024, as the Jaguars' 4-13 finish was their worst since the infamous Urban Meyer season. This was largely a bad football team from top to bottom.

Jacksonville Jaguars in 2024:

  • Points per game: 18.8 (26th)
  • EPA per dropback: +0.004 (22nd)
  • EPA per rush: -0.07 (14th)
  • Points per game against: 25.6 (27th)

And yet, where there is terrible football lies opportunity for new and improved parties to assume key roles. Enter: New head coach Liam Coen and No. 2 overall pick WR/CB Travis Hunter, who are being tasked with (hopefully) leading Duval to its first Super Bowl appearance since the franchise was founded back in 1995.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy-related) questions about the Jaguars ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Note: All referenced ADP (in parentheses) is Underdog, via our Fantasy Life ADP Tool. For our full fantasy football rankings as well as early Week 1 rankings, head to our rankings hub.

Jacksonville Jaguars 2025 Fantasy Football And Team Preview

Will Trevor Lawrence finally live up to his generational billing?

The first four seasons of T-Law's career haven't exactly brought out the best in fantasy land.

Lawrence's fantasy points per game by year:

  • 2021: 11.7 (QB29)
  • 2022: 17.4 (QB11)
  • 2023: 16.4 (QB15)
  • 2024: 14.5 (QB23)

The advanced numbers also don't paint the best picture. We're talking about the QB28 and QB37 in EPA per dropback and yards per attempt among 53 qualified signal-callers over the past four seasons. Those marks do improve to 24th and 22nd if you remove the rookie year Urban Meyer-induced debacle; just realize most numbers paint the 2021 NFL Draft's No. 1 overall pick as an average-to-mediocre QB through four seasons of his career.

Which brings us to 2025: Why should we expect it to be any different?

Well, beginning to get something close to a decent offensive environment would be a good start.

Jaguars rank in Supporting Cast Rating:

  • 2024: 25th
  • 2023: 30th
  • 2022: 20th
  • 2021: 28th

Obviously the presence of (fellow) alleged generational stud Travis Hunter spruces up the WR room, but the team also spent a pretty penny to bring in ex-Commander WR Dyami Brown to replace the ever-meh Gabe Davis. Throw in multiple free agent signings and a third-round pick on the offensive line, and there's reason to believe wunderkind Liam Coen has the tools needed to get the most out of Lawrence this season.

Trevor Lawrence Fantasy Football Outlook

The good thing about investing in Lawrence this year is that, unlike Caleb Williams, he's still available in the later rounds of drafts. Both former first-overall picks possess enough dual-threat ability to theoretically boom in fantasy land inside upgraded offenses in terms of both personnel and scheme, yet Williams presently carries a QB11 ADP while T-Law is a lowly QB18.

I wouldn't say Lawrence stands out as someone who NEEDS to be drafted at this price with guys like Justin Herbert, Jordan Love, J.J. McCarthy, and C.J. Stroud basically going in the same round—all but McCarthy have demonstrated a higher ceiling than Lawrence during their respective careers—but it's this sort of depth that makes waiting at QB this season so appealing. Give T-Law credit for actually projecting better than all those names … by under 10 total fantasy points.

What RB should be prioritized in this muddled backfield?

Coen's 2024 Bucs racked up the league's fourth-most rushing yards while ranking third in yards per attempt. Bucky Irving and Co. certainly deserve plenty of credit, but we're also talking about an offense that improved from 27th to seventh in RB rush yards before contact from 2023 to 2024. This has been a pretty brutal feature of this Jaguars offense over the years.

Jaguars ranks in RB rush yards before contact per carry:

  • 2024: 25th
  • 2023: 32nd
  • 2022: 3rd
  • 2021: 18th
  • 2020: 24th

Perhaps it's not a coincidence which one of those seasons brought out the best of Mr. Travis Etienne. The former first-rounder was one of the league's more efficient backs in his de facto rookie season in 2022 on his way to working as the RB23 in PPR points per game, while 325 touches in 2023 enabled ETN to career-best RB7 heights on a per-game basis. Unfortunately, early-season shoulder and hamstring injuries, as well as the emergence of Tank Bigsby, reduced the Jags' starter to a pretty brutal RB38 finish last season.

Seriously: Bigsby was rather easily the best RB in Jacksonville last season following an atrocious rookie campaign.

Sometimes enhanced efficiency from a backup is more so due to that player facing lighter boxes on a smaller sample size. Not so much in this case: Etienne actually had fewer carries than Bigsby (150 vs. 168) and had a lower percentage of his rush attempts come with 8+ defenders in the box (18% vs. 24%). The Jaguars' 2023 third-round pick combined explosiveness with some angry running on his way to working as Next-Gen Stats' ninth-best RB in rush yards over expected per carry.

And yet, there have been plenty of drafts this offseason where neither Etienne nor Bigsby was the first Jacksonville RB drafted. Enter: Rookie fourth-rounder Bhayshul Tuten, who has the sort of speed score to take a lonely fantasy analyst from six to midnight. Fantasy Life's Thor Nystrom comped Tuten to Isiah Pacheco and noted:

"The explosion we saw in Indianapolis is evident on his film. Tuten is a home run hitter who finished No. 8 in the FBS in breakaway yards last fall. Of the 20 backs ranked in this column, Tuten was No. 5 in elusive rating last season." 

The two primary concerns: Ball security (10 fumbles on 406 career touches) and the history of Day 3 RBs usually not booming in a meaningful way in fantasy land.

Bottom line: ETN is the back I find myself drafting the most in the middle rounds. This is mostly thanks to his proven three-down ability; Bigsby is one of the position's worst pass catchers and finished only as the RB41 last season despite finding so much success on the ground. I'm a big fan of Etienne in early drafts at his RB36 ADP; on average, he's going after the top-57 WRs, top-nine TEs, and top-12 QBs are already off the board.

As for Tuten: This feels a bit like this year's version of Kimani Vidal. Maybe the rookie simply kicks the Jaguars' incumbent RBs to curb and seizes the starting job; just realize it seems more likely than not he begins the season as the third back on the depth chart, meaning he's probably *two* injuries away from assuming the sort of role that fantasy managers can count on.

Can both Brian Thomas and Travis Hunter put up big-time fantasy numbers?

BTJ just had one of the most efficient NFL debuts of the last decade.

Most yards per route run by a rookie WR since 2015 (min. 50 targets):

Overall, only Ja'Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson had more receiving yards than Thomas in Year 1. The rookie's elite blend of size (6-foot-3, 209 pounds) and speed (second fastest ball carrier MPH of 2024!) made him a constant big-play threat despite not exactly dealing with the league's most consistent play under center.

This sure looks like one of the better WRs in the NFL—and we're talking about someone who turns only 23 in October!

 

And then there's the No. 2 overall pick of the 2025 NFL Draft. Hunter has spent time on both sides of the ball during offseason team activities, but Jaguars GM James Gladstone was pretty clear about where the Heisman Trophy Winner would be focusing the bulk of his attention early on.

"His intent is on playing both sides of the ball, as is ours. When it comes to his onboarding process we’ll give him a heavy dose of offense, and sprinkle in the defensive side of the ball, knowing that by the time we get to the regular season, those should be balanced out. But that’s the initial onboarding plan as it stands today.”

It's hard not to be excited about Hunter's upside in fantasy land should a full-time role on offense present itself. The fifth-highest ranked prospect in the Fantasy Life Rookie WR Super Model dating back to 2018, Hunter combines tantalizing ball skills with the sort of fluid movement in space that often makes him look like the best player on the field … because he usually is!

Fantasy Life Draft Expert Thor Nystrom had Hunter as the No. 1 player on his pre-draft board and comped him to Shohei Ohtani, noting:

"This guy is a touched-by-God athlete. He’s got it all. The speed. The explosive acceleration. The agility. The fluidity. … Hunter plays bigger than his 6-foot, 188-pound billing as a receiver because of the physics-defying things he can do with his body, and the distended catch radius this gives him along with his length. Hunter is an acrobatic contortionist at the moment of truth, turning poorly thrown balls into routine completions. His wingspan is solidly above-average for NFL cornerbacks, and is only one inch south of pterodactyl Arizona WR Tetairoa McMillan."

Joining BTJ and Hunter in three-WR sets will be ex-Commander Dyami Brown, who signed a somewhat surprisingly solid one-year, $10 million deal this past March. Give the former third-rounder credit for finally starting to groove at the end of last season, as Brown posted 5-89-1, 6-98-0, and 3-42-0 receiving lines during the Commanders' playoff run. There's a solid player here somewhere capable of stretching the defense and making plays after the catch.

Brian Thomas Jr. 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

BTJ is someone I'm happy to wind up with at the Round 1-2 turn during any given fantasy draft, but I struggle to get overly on board with Hunter's borderline WR2 ADP. Fully fading a (wait for it) generational talent doesn't seem wise; just realize it's not a given Hunter receives the necessary +80% snap role needed to rack up enough targets to compete with similarly priced ballers like DK Metcalf, DeVonta Smith, and Jameson Williams. Reminder: Only 12 rookie WRs have posted top-24 numbers in the last decade; it's scary to buy in at that price for a player who could pretty clearly be the No. 2 option in a passing game that isn't exactly guaranteed to resemble the Greatest Show on Turf.

Final note: I've enjoyed throwing late-round darts at Brown; he joins Joshua Palmer, Tutu Atwell, and Darius Slayton as the only WRs making eight figures annually and are available after Round 12 in best ball land.

Is Brenton Strange deserving of a priority late-round draft pick?

There's a better-than-decent chance the majority of NFL fans have never even heard of Brenton Strange due to Evan Engram leading the way in Jacksonville over the past two seasons.

And yet, the former second-round pick suddenly projects as Duval County's clear-cut lead TE1 after the team decided to part ways with Engram. This doesn't necessarily guarantee a full-time role, but things are certainly looking good considering …

  • New head coach Liam Coen featured his former TE Cade Otton on 87% of the team's dropbacks last season—the third-highest mark of any player at the position.
  • Backups Johnny Mundt and Hunter Long have been block-first options throughout their respective careers.
  • Jaguars TEs as a whole rank sixth in total targets since T-Law was drafted back in 2021.

The latest Penn State product's combination of high-end athleticism and pass-game prowess helped him turn in four separate top-10 finishes in fantasy land while replacing an injured Engram last season. Still only 24 years young, it'd make sense if the best is still to come from Strange, who appears to have a real shot at finishing third in his offense in targets.

Bottom line: Strange is a strong candidate to be on the cover of Week 2 waiver wire articles after the public realizes we're looking at a young talent with a full-time role and gaudy target ceiling—don't be afraid to use a late-round pick on the potential top-10 breakout.

What makes Liam Coen's scheme so special?

Offensive playcaller metrics dubbed Coen as the league's third-best option last season behind only Todd Monken and Joe Brady. The Sean McVay disciple uses plenty of pre-snap motion (53.1%, 12th) to put his players in a position to succeed, but it's Coen's ability to create explosives from relatively ho-hum passes that was really impressive.

 

Obviously the Jims and Joes in Tampa Bay helped matters. Either way, the 39-year-old offensive mastermind sure did a good job putting his players in a position to succeed in 2024.

Prediction for the Jaguars 2025 Season

The Jags are sitting with a 7.5-win total—a mark which they've failed to pass in 11 of the last 14 seasons!

And guess what: I'm drinking the Duval Kool-Aid … to an extent. Double-digit wins might be a bit to ask, but eight or nine Ws feels reasonable for a team that:
1.) Invested some serious resources to improve the offensive scheme and personnel
2.) Boasts a potentially lethal pass-rush duo between Josh Hines-Allen and Travon Walker, and 
3.) Should receive some level of positive regression/better luck after going a brutal 3-10 in one-score games last season—good for the third-lowest win percentage in the league.

My bold fantasy prediction: Travis Hunter looks every bit like the two-way superstar he was drafted to be … but fails to supply top-36 fantasy numbers due to fewer routes than expected and BTJ's target-hog ways.