As the trade deadline nears, speculation around Brian Thomas Jr.'s future with the Jacksonville Jaguars continues to swirl.
However, despite all of the outside noise, head coach Liam Coen remains impressed with how Thomas has handled everything. After playing only 15 snaps in Week 6 against Houston, Thomas came down with a third-down touchdown reception early on against the Colts in Week 8.
"He's a young dude, but he's very mature," Coen said on Monday. "Like he's not an immature guy that you're emotional and gets too high and too low. And he said it last week, he's just going to continue to come out and do his job and I think I said at some point last week that he was going to make plays for us in this game. We all had belief that was going to happen
and we're going to continue to believe that."
Coen continued, "We're going to continue to work with him and continue to try to get the most out of every player, especially BT. I have been impressed with the way that he's able to block out the noise, continue to be integrated with everybody. I was proud. I was very happy for him to see him make that play on the first drive of the game on a critical third-and-goal to go."
In addition to hauling in the touchdown catch on Sunday, Thomas also played 28 offensive snaps, similar to that of Parker Washington and Jakobi Meyers. He was, however, only targeted two times.
Since last year's trade deadline, trade speculation has surrounded Thomas, but the Jaguars have remained firm in that they won't trade him.
However, The Ringer's Tom Pelissero posted on X on Saturday that Thomas' "recent benching and ongoing struggles have ramped up belief within the league that Jacksonville will move him by the deadline."
The expectation seems to be that teams will call on Thomas, but are the Jaguars willing to trade him?
This article originally appeared on Jaguars Wire: How has Jaguars' Brian Thomas handled trade speculation? Coen weighs in
