JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Dyami Brown wanted a chance to do more.
After a strong finish to the 2024 season with the Washington Commanders — which included the second-most receiving yards in the playoffs — Brown chose to sign a one-year deal with the Jacksonville Jaguars because he believed that would allow him to do so.
If what he did during OTAs and minicamp is any indication, he was correct.
Brown played a featured role in new head coach Liam Coen’s offense, which was significant since the Jaguars drafted receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter second. Pro Bowl receiver Brian Thomas Jr., who finished third in the NFL in receiving yards as a rookie in 2024, also returns. That should put Brown in position to set career bests in catches, yards and touchdowns in 2025.
“That’s just staying focused and locked in,” Brown said. “At the end of the day, all I can do is go study where I need to study and keep performing, stay on top of the little details, the fundamental things. Can’t get tired of those things, and at the end of the day, I just want to be the player that I can be.”
For the first four years of his career, Brown was an underachiever. The Commanders drafted him in the third round in 2021 after he caught 106 passes for 2,133 yards and 20 touchdowns in his final two seasons at North Carolina with quarterback Sam Howell. Yet, Brown caught only 29 passes in 47 games in his first three seasons with the Commanders and never emerged as the complement to Terry McLaurin, who posted 1,000 yards receiving each season.
It wasn’t until the final six weeks of 2024 that Brown started to come on, catching 16 passes for 159 yards to finish with career highs in catches (30) and receiving yards (308). He had the same number of catches as McLaurin (14) and outgained him by two yards (229 to 227) in Washington’s three playoff games, which included five catches for 89 yards and a touchdown in the Commanders’ 23-20 upset of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Coen was on the Bucs’ sideline as their offensive coordinator and he thought Brown would be a good fit for what he wanted to do in Jacksonville, especially after the team traded Christian Kirk to the Houston Texans and released tight end Evan Engram. He envisions a bigger role for Brown than what he had with the Commanders.
“You look at somebody that’s able to attack the field at all three levels,” Coen said. “He can go down the field on the post, in the go, in the pylons and be the top shelf, but also you can throw him a screen and he can go and do something with it. I can’t coach that. I can’t coach you to go and make three people miss after you’ve caught the ball. … That’s what he can do.
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“Hopefully, he’ll be able to help us at all three levels. He’s hungry. He’s coming off a successful end of the year. He wants to continue to do that.”
Quarterback Trevor Lawrence was impressed with Brown during the spring and said the two seemed to click pretty quickly.
“His speed obviously is a threat down the field, which is important as a receiver [to] stretch the field, but also he’s a really, really smart football player,” Lawrence said. “He’s picked up the system really quickly. … I don’t know if you guys watch plenty of practices, he’s gotten the ball a lot because it seems like he’s always in the right spot. He always has a feel for the zone, like where to sit, where [to exploit] those voids.”
Coen liked seeing that this spring because it validated the Jaguars belief that Brown could handle a bigger role, as well as their decision to sign him to a one-year contract that guaranteed him $9.5 million.
“You didn’t really see him work the intermediate that much [in Washington], and I think over the course of this spring, Trevor and him have gained a little bit of a chemistry on some of those intermediate in-breakers, curls, maybe outcuts,” Coen said.
“… Part of the selling point to have him come here was, ‘Man, we really want to continue to diversify your route tree and have you do more. You’re not just a screen, jet sweep, vertical threat.'”
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Brown is excited about the expanded role, but he said he’s more excited about how explosive the offense can be with three speedy receivers who can play multiple spots.
“At the end of the day, we want to come in and find our identity of who we are and who we’re going to be,” Brown said. “And I think with the offense that we have and the players that we have, we can make a lot of things happen.
“… Nobody’s just running one route. We know we all do the exact same thing and it’s kind of hard to guard three people that can necessarily do the same thing and then be explosive at the same time. I think even with the running backs that we have, they’re explosive as well. … I think this offense right here just sets us up for success.”
