It’s time for Parker Washington’s encore.
The 2023 sixth-round pick had a massive breakout season for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2025.
Now, he’s hoping to one-up himself in 2026.
He’s got a lot of believers, including ESPN’s Mina Kimes.
Kimes randomly took to X (formerly Twitter) on Friday and posted this one sentence about Washington:
“Do you guys ever wake up and think about the fact that in the second half of the 2025 season, 39% of Parker Washington’s catches went for 20+ yards?”
Yep, Washington has that kind of effect. It’s easy for him to pop into mind at any moment.
And yeah, he was explosive as heck down the stretch of the 2025 season. He’ll be hoping to build on that when the new campaign kicks off for the Jags on Sunday, Sept. 13 against the Cleveland Browns.
Parker Washington Big Plays
Washington’s entire 2025 season was special. He caught 58 passes for 847 yards and five touchdowns.
Most notably, though, he started to hit on more and more big plays.
As a rookie out of Penn State in 2023, Washington averaged 8.3 yards per catch (16 for 132).
In 2024, he upped that to 12.2 yards per catch (32 for 390).
Washington was on a whole further level in 2025 when he had his 58 for 847, which works out to 14.6 yards per catch.
He picked up 8.9 yards per target, a career-high.
It wasn’t a fluke, either. A look at Washington’s average depth of target shows that he was being thrown to further down the field.
As a rookie, Jaguars QBs targeted Washington just 7.4 yards down the field.
In his second season, that number rose to 11.2, a substantial increase.
Last season, Washington had a 12.5-yard average depth of target. Trevor Lawrence was slinging the ball down the field to Washington in the hopes that he could make some plays.
The Difficulty of an Encore
Washington has a great chance to be important to the Jaguars again in 2026, but it’s in his statistics that there’s a bit of uncertainty.
Jacksonville simply has so much receiving depth, so it’s hard to know exactly how the numbers will work out.
The Jags are still led on the depth chart by Brian Thomas Jr., who had a worst second season than rookie year but still has immense talent.
They also will get a full season from Jakobi Meyers after he was a trade deadline pickup a year ago. That could shift how things work a little bit.
To be fair to Kimes’ point, though, the trade for Meyers is likely part of why Washington started going even further down the field, so maybe that was a help to him.
Then even beyond these guys, there’s Travis Hunter, who probably will play more cornerback than receiver in 2026 but still could make an impact if given the chance on offense.
It’s a good problem for the Jags to have, and it’s helped in a big way by the emergence of Washington into a rising star in Jacksonville.
Jaguars’ Parker Washington Is On Mina Kimes’ Mind