Washington closed last season the way most receivers spend a whole career trying to start one: three separate 100-yard games in Jacksonville's final stretch, then a real day in a playoff loss to Buffalo. None of that came with Brian Thomas Jr. injured or Travis Hunter buried on the depth chart — it came with both of them healthy, in an offense that still found ways to get Washington the ball. Camp has picked up exactly where the season left off. Beat reporters watching practice all summer keep landing on the same guy as Lawrence's most trusted target, ahead of Thomas and ahead of Hunter, in one-on-ones against the Jaguars' best corners. A label on a depth chart is not the same thing as who the quarterback actually looks for.
What makes him hard to cover isn't size or a track-star vertical. It's timing. Washington wins underneath and in the intermediate game by getting in and out of breaks before a defender can plant, and he's shown he'll take that same skill downfield when the defense forgets he can — he beat Hunter clean at the line in camp for a deep touchdown, not something you draw up for a possession slot guy. Jacksonville leans on him in exactly the spots that make a route-runner valuable: quick-game work that keeps Lawrence out of trouble, and manufactured touches that turn a short catch into real yards after it. He is also the closest thing the Jaguars have to a set-and-forget punt returner, which says something about how much the coaching staff trusts him with the ball in his hands even when nothing about it involves running a route.
The honest risk is the same one that follows every receiver who breaks out over a short sample: Washington's biggest stretch of production came over three-plus games, not a full season, and it happened after Jacksonville had already shuffled its receiver pecking order down the stretch. Thomas is still the size-speed alpha of that room, Hunter is a former Heisman winner who can play either side of the ball, and Jakobi Meyers has done exactly this job — reliable possession slot — for a decade elsewhere. If the Jaguars' passing offense tilts back toward Thomas as the clear No. 1 target once the season starts for real, Washington's snaps stay the same but his target share doesn't.
Sutton is the name worth measuring him against. He's spent years being Denver's security blanket in the red zone, but Denver just handed its offense a second true outside receiver, and a crowded route tree at 30 years old is a different problem than a crowded route tree at 24. Washington is fighting for targets inside a talented room too, but he's doing it as the guy his own quarterback already goes to first, on an ascending offense, at an age where the role can still grow instead of erode. Given the choice between an aging possession receiver whose usage is about to get squeezed and a younger one whose quarterback keeps finding him regardless of what the coaches call him, the football says take the receiver still trending up.
