Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\nThomas finished fourth in Offensive Rookie of the Year voting in 2024 when he caught 87 passes for 1,282 yards and 10 touchdowns. He was voted a Pro Bowler and immediately established himself as one of the best young receivers in football.<\/p>\n
Then the sophomore slump hit. Last season, he caught only 48 of his 91 targets (52.7%) for 707 yards and two touchdowns. His yards per game dropped from 75.4 to 50.5, while his catch rate sunk from 65.4% to 52.7%.<\/p>\n
Drops were a big problem for Thomas in 2025. His eight drops were second-most among all wide receivers, according to PFF, and he only caught 36.7% of his contested targets. That\u2019s partly because he seemed to shy away from contact, avoiding collisions when going over the middle of the field.<\/p>\n
The Jaguars are suddenly rich at wide receiver with Jakobi Meyers, Travis Hunter and Parker Washington, making Thomas a potentially expendable piece. It still seems unlikely that Jacksonville will trade him only two years after spending a first-round pick on him, but Coen and Gladstone aren\u2019t the ones who drafted him. That was the previous regime.<\/p>\n
Thomas fits what the Rams should be looking for in a wide receiver, too. He\u2019s a big, fast field-stretcher who can take the top off of the defense and open things up for Nacua and Adams underneath. His average depth of target of 14.7 yards was the eighth-highest among qualified receivers last season, showing that most of the passes thrown his way were beyond the sticks.<\/p>\n
Tutu Atwell didn\u2019t work out as a deep threat, but maybe Thomas could. It would probably take a first-round pick to pry him from the Jaguars but the Rams may not be able to find a more productive player at No. 29 overall in the draft. Thus, sending that to Jacksonville for three years of contractual control of Thomas would make sense.<\/p>\n
None of this matters if the Jaguars are steadfast on keeping him, but it\u2019s worth a call from the Rams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 25, 2026, 12:56 p.m. PT Les Snead and Sean McVay have never been afraid to take a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[95878,7,1014,58,2444,2611,6,424,95922,95923,110003,95882,99474,97129,95946,96331,95892,95936,95935,95924,95895,95899,96813,95925,96099,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-776296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-los-angeles","11":"tag-los-angeles-rams","12":"tag-losangeles","13":"tag-losangelesrams","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-rams","16":"tag-sstssportsnflrams","17":"tag-sstsnrams","18":"tag-tagallen-robinson-ii","19":"tag-tagamerican-football","20":"tag-tagbrandin-cooks","21":"tag-tagbrian-thomas-jr","22":"tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","23":"tag-tagdavante-adams","24":"tag-tagespn-inc","25":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","26":"tag-tagliam-coen","27":"tag-taglos-angeles-rams","28":"tag-tagnfl-hub","29":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","30":"tag-tagpuka-nacua","31":"tag-tagsean-mcvay","32":"tag-tagsec-conference-football","33":"tag-tagsports-news","34":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}