Welcome to the AFC South version of Optimus Fantasy’s Team Previews! Today, we’re looking at the Jacksonville Jaguars. In order to best know where we’re going, we often need to study where we’ve been. With that in mind, I will cover what the team looked like in 2024, fantasy significant changes to philosophy and personnel, and what I expect from the team in 2025. Your fantasy drafts are coming. Stay ready, so you don’t have to get ready.

The Jacksonville Jaguars in 2024

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Team Stats
PROE	-3.25
4th Down Go For It!	21.85
Target GINI	0.4907 –
Rushing GINI	0.603 –
Plays/Game: Offense	58.4 –

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Let’s start off by defining a few things, shall we?

Note: Any stat highlighted green with a “+” means it’s significantly, at least one standard deviation, above average. Any stat highlighted red with a “-“ means it’s significantly below average.

PROE – Pass Rate Over Expectation

2nd and 1 for the offense? Sure, it makes sense to run. 3rd and 12? Yup, absolutely reasonable to pass. PROE measures how often a team passes the ball when we would “expect” them to run. Such as on 2nd and 1. Obviously, this is our expectation, and part of the strategy is to do the unexpected. So it’s not a perfect encapsulation. However, over 17 games, this gives us a general idea of how an offensive coaching staff envisions their offensive strengths.

4th Down – Go For It!

It’s kinda just what it sounds like. Unlike PROE, there’s no “expectation” to this stat. Of all 4th downs, this is how often a team chose to go for it. Higher rates mean an offense has more chances to accumulate fantasy points. Conversely, it’s not as great for kickers. 

Target GINI

This is where my background in economics comes out. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, Target GINI is how concentrated a passing attack is among pass-catching targets. A Target GINI of 1 means every target went to one player. Perfectly evenly distributed targets among players result in a Target GINI of 0. 

Rushing GINI

The same as Target GINI, but for rushing. So a Rushing GINI of 1 means one player had 100% of the rushing attempts. A Rushing GINI of 0 means every player received an equal number of rushing attempts.

“OK, I get what GINI is, but how is it helpful for us?” You know, you’re really great with these questions. Are you sure you’re not a fantasy football expert? At any rate, these metrics tell us how concentrated or siloed a team’s passing and rushing attacks are. For fantasy, we’re looking for them both to be as close to 1 as possible.

Plays/Game: Offense

Literally just what it sounds like, this is an average of how many plays per game a team’s offense runs. The idea is that more offensive plays equal more opportunities for our players to score fantasy points. Simple enough, right?

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Top Performers (HPPR 2024)
Trevor Lawrence	QB27
Tank Bigsby	RB32
Travis Etienne	RB36
Brian Thomas	WR4
Parker Washington	WR79
Christian Kirk	WR95
Brenton Strange	TE31
Cam Little	K16

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Significant Offseason Changes from ’24 to ’25

Lost: Christian Kirk, Evan Engram

Drafted: Travis Hunter, Bhayshul Tuten

The wholesale changes of the Jaguars are most apparent on offense, where they said goodbye to two offensive stalwarts and ushered in more dynamic playmakers with their draft class. Expect some growing pains as they acclimate to the NFL.

The Jacksonville offensive line is one that has the look of a unit that might start slow as they gel, but will be a top-half of the NFL unit at worst by the end of the season. Even that might be a little low. 

Well, we’ve replaced one guy who was supposed to fix Trevor Lawrence with another guy, Liam Coen, who’s supposed to fix Trevor Lawrence. In this case, there was a wholesale change of E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E in the front office. So if there was ever a time, it’s now. 

Looking Ahead to the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2025

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Lou’s Confidence Level 1 – 5
Trevor Lawrence	2
Tank, Bigsby, Travis Etienne	3
Brian Thomas, Travis Hunter, Dyami Brown	5
Brenton Strange	3
Cam Little	4

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Lou’s 2025 HPPR Rankings
Trevor Lawrence	QB22
Tank Bigsby	RB30
Travis Etienne	RB42
Brian Thomas	WR9
Travis Hunter	WR52
Dyami Brown	WR96
Brenton Strange	TE10
Cam Little	–

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Week	Opponent	Expected W/L
1	Carolina	L
2	@ Cincinnati	L
3	Houston	W
4	@ San Francisco	L
5	Kansas City	L
6	Seattle	W
7	Los Angeles Rams	L
8	BYE	–
9	@ Las Vegas	L
10	@ Houston	L
11	Los Angeles Chargers	W
12	@ Arizona	L
13	@ Tennessee	L
14	@ Indianapolis	W
15	New York Jets	W
16	@ Denver	W
17	Indianapolis	L

Lou’s projected 2025 “fantasy season” record: 6-10

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OK, Now For the Important (Non-Kicker) Jaguars

“Lou, you didn’t rank Cam Little!” Very astute, and you are correct. I’m a big believer in saying, “I don’t know,” when someone asks me about things I’m ignorant about. I’m kicker-dumb. So if you’re here looking for insight on kickers, I’m very sorry. The best I can say is the Jaguars don’t have any interest in replacing him, so he gets a solid 4 for confidence.

Man, that is a LOT of red minuses in the advanced stats for ’24, huh? Well, I’ve got good news for everyone looking to leave their drafts with a fistful of Jaguars. The Jags let literally everyone from the front office in ’24 go – former GM Trent Baalke at the behest of new HC Liam Coen, no less – so there’s no reason to think those numbers will have any bearing on ’25.

Note: For those interested, Coen’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers were significantly below average in both 4th Down Go For It! and Target GINI in ’24.

It might look like I’m not bullish on the Jaguars’ WRs if you look at just my rankings, and I get why you’d think that. One highly ranked player and then the rest outside of the top 50 doesn’t scream confidence. However, I absolutely believe in the group of them together and how they complement each other. Thomas, on the outside, along with Hunter, Brown, and Parker, Washington manning the flanker and slot positions, is a pretty decent WR corps. I also believe Hunter will have a much greater impact in real football than in fantasy for his rookie season.

My overall “meh” ranking of Jacksonville’s RBs is due entirely to Coen’s history from last year in Tampa Bay. In ’24, we saw 4th-round rookie RB Bucky Irving completely take over the backfield, despite incumbent Rachaad White already in tow. This year, Tank Bigsby and Travis Etienne are the incumbents of note, and Coen and company drafted not one but two RBs: Bhayshul Tuten in the 4th round and LeQuint Allen in the 7th round. That draft capital doesn’t scream “starter” for either rookie, but given Coen’s history, we still have to question things.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about Brenton Strange at least a little bit. Make no mistake, Strange shouldn’t finish as a top 4-6 TE on the season. However, there are a lot of moving pieces in the Jacksonville offense from ’24 to ’25, and Strange is one of the few constants. What’s more, Strange had some small success in ’24 despite the dumpster fire of a season. If you find yourself forced to wait on TE, Strange makes for a solid bet to return decent value for you in ’25.

If There is a League Winner On Jacksonville, it’s…

Travis Etienne (RB), but not for the reasons you think.

The entire Jaguars RB depth chart has a feel of “there’s one (or more) RB too many on this roster.” The Jaguars will move one of these guys. Maybe that’s just putting their 7th-round rookie LeQuint Allen on the practice squad. However, I don’t believe Coen would expose one of their hand-picked toys for another team to pluck them from his grasp for no compensation.

Bigsby and Etienne have received the lion’s share of the work throughout training camp thus far, despite the presence of those rookies. Bigsby has reportedly looked like an RB possessed (complimentary), where Etienne has looked fine, but not on the level of Bigsby. It feels like Etienne will be on the move…somewhere. 

Now, there’s always the chance he ends up in a place like New Orleans, where fantasy football assets go to die this year. So don’t go out and do something silly like draft Travis Etienne ahead of ADP. I look at places like Dallas, a very good offense with a glaring hole at RB, or Chicago, a developing offense with a potential hole at RB, or even Kansas City, which has a whole cavalcade of JAGs (Just A Guy). A trade to any of them would skyrocket Etienne’s value and production.

Deep League Draft Target

Raise your hand if you know the name Parker Washington. Put your hands down, you sickos! It’s fine if you don’t, or if you haven’t even considered drafting him this year. You’re certainly not alone there, as Washington doesn’t even have an ADP according to FantasyPros. This means he’s falling outside of the top 331 picks on average. Yes, Washington only had a single game in ’24 where he did anything. Even then, it was with Mac Jones piloting the offense for 75% of the day.

Don’t draft Parker Washington, thinking you’ve got a sleeper producer. But monitor him in case he starts getting more playing time, because he’s shown us he can produce given the opportunity.

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Lou Brunson is a Senior Analyst and THE social media brains for Optimus Fantasy. Find his dynasty stylings on right here and at draftbuddy.com.