American Football

Reacts Survey results: Jaguars fans approve the Brian Thomas Jr. pick

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Syndication: Florida Times-Union
Corey Perrine/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK

The results are in, and the majority of Jaguars fans gave Jacksonville’s first-round pick an “A” grade.

Last week, we asked Jacksonville Jaguars fans to grade the team’s selection of Brian Thomas Jr. after trading back from 17th overall to 23rd overall.

Over half of the survey’s respondents gave the pick an “A” grade.


“When you go into the draft,” general manager Trent Baalke said following Round 1, “You try to identify players that can help you on either side of the ball. Brian is a young man, I think he had 22 targets over 20-plus yards and scored 15 touchdowns on those. He’s an explosive athlete, he can help open up the field a little bit. He’s certainly a younger receiver for Trevor [Lawrence] to build around and our offense to build around. There were a lot of positives to the pick, a lot of time and energy went into it. I feel good about where we’re at.”

Coach Doug Pederson was asked if the hope is Thomas Jr. will add more juice to the offense. “Well yeah, that’s the idea when you select good players in the draft. You’re adding a skilled receiver, you’re adding depth, you’re adding a guy that has an element of speed that we haven’t had probably since Calvin [Ridley] last year. Once we get him in here too, and really get our hands on him, get him into the playbook in a couple of weeks and really see how we can use him. I think it can only be a great asset for us on offense to not only open up the field, but I think open up some other elements of the offense.”

Top comments from Friday’s post:

Hurricane123
I give it an A. A- if we picked him 17th. Would have been an A+ if we traded up for Rome Odunze.But I like BTJ at 23. Not much to not like. Upper body strength to blast through jams could be better. Focus drops do happen, but the big play threat is there. It’s all coachable.

ShatleydtheBed
Definitely boosted by the fact they traded back and still got their guy who they would’ve taken at 17 (so they say). WR like CB was a huge need so can’t hate on it too much, but I preferred Mitchell. I gave it a B, hope he develops and shows he can be a more complete receiver. Welcome to Duval BTJ! Now let’s trade up for a CB

Khannnn!
F for Fire Baalke

SLYsurfer7
A…all this guy does is catch touchdowns and your average NFL CB just won’t be able to run with him 1v1. He’s a bit of a one trick pony right now, but he’s darn good at it. Will be fun to see how he develops… Now just need to shore up the O-line and add a playmaking defender in the remaining rounds somewhere (not necessarily in that order).

MalabarJag
I gave it an A, tentatative. It looks like if Baalke trades up to (say) pick 40 (Commies) he can also get a top CB like Kool-Aid or DeJean and that would round out the draft nicely.
Of course he’ll probably draft an off-ball LB or safety.

mnkman322
There were better receivers on the board, D for me.

CubsJagsNoles
No wide receiver is a sure thing in the first round. But we got good value and there’s a decent chance this is a homerun pick. So A from me. Now go get TJ Tampa or Fiske in the 2nd round.

CMerrigan15
Even if they went with Arnold, it would still be an A. They moved back and still had the option to go CB or WR, plus got a haul of picks from Minnesota. Love the move.

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