Big Cat Country
Throughout the 2025 NFL season, SB Nation’s Doug Farrar writes about the game’s Secret Superstars — those players whose performances might slip under the radar for whatever reasons. In this installment, we focus on Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange, whose return from injured reserve gave a passing game with all kinds of questions at least one definitive answer.
Five seasons into the Trevor Lawrence Experience, it’s tough to tell exactly what the Jacksonville Jaguars’ passing game is. It exists in a conventional sense, of course, but it’s not always easy to determine… well, to what end? In Jacksonville’s 27-24 win over the Arizona Cardinals last Sunday, a victory that pushed the team to 7-4 on the season, Lawrence completed 18 of 30 passes for 256 yards, three touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 81.4. That high volatility rate is one of the things that has been a Lawrence issue all along — he’ll make some amazing throws, then some real head-scratchers, and a whole lot of “meh” in the middle.
First-year head coach Liam Coen, fresh off his work with Baker Mayfield in Tampa, and with a pretty decent history with Sean McVay before that, was supposed to be the fixer, but Lawrence seems to be in a lot of the same places he was before. Not that it can’t work over time, but we are where we are with this.
One player who has seen an uptick in productivity in the passing game is tight end Brenton Strange. The 2023 second-round pick from Penn State saw limited productivity in his rookie season, caught 40 passes on 54 targets for 411 yards and two touchdowns in 2024, and has worked through a quadriceps injury he suffered in Week 5 against the Kansas City Chiefs. That put him on injured reserve, and he wasn’t able to return to play until last Sunday’s Cardinals game.
But what a return it was. Strange caught five passes on five targets for 93 yards, and he was beating up Arizona’s defense on corner routes to either side of the field, as well as simple sit and drag routes from which he could manufacture yards after the catch. Given the number of receivers who have struggled for whatever reasons in Coen’s offense this season, Strange’s breakout performance was a welcome relief.
Strange may not seem like a force multiplier if you’re not familiar with his game, but this season, the difference with and without him has been fairly obvious. Without him, the Jaguars’ EPA per play drops from +0.006 to -0.024, yards per play drops from 5.41 to 4.83, and as much as Strange can be effective when he’s running routes, he’s just as effective (if not even more so) as a blocker.
“Strange is a huge part of our offense and you see probably, unfortunately, it took his absence a little bit to really see how much he impacts opening things up, not just in the pass game,” offensive coordinator Grant Udinski...
