Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange thinks this team may be the best in the AFC, and he explains why.
Jacksonville Jaguars tight end Brenton Strange's recent return to the lineup has only made the Jags offense better.
Just a few weeks ago, this offense was struggling, but now they are hitting on all cylinders, and Strange explains why. It starts, he says, with playmakers.
“I think we have so many different options and so many different weapons that you have to cover. And if [defenses] want to focus on one person, then the other person gets an opportunity to eat. So, I think we do a good job of that," Strange told reporters Monday. "(W)e're all super selfless, too. We all want each other to succeed, and I think that's what I love the most about this group."
Strange, in his third year in Jacksonville after the Jags took him in the second round of the draft in 2023, also explains why this team is different than teams in the past.
“We have always had talented players, and I think now we're just starting to put it together. We're starting to figure out what it takes each and every week, and I think we do that through our preparation," Strange said. "(A)nd Coach [Head Coach Liam Coen] does a great job of preparing us every single week."
The Jags are on a six-game win streak and are now 11-4 with two games left in the regular season. They're a good bet to win the AFC South and have a shot at landing the conference's No. 1 seed, after knocking off the Denver Broncos 34-20 on Sunday at Mile High Stadium.
Strange said while he loves playing "in front of Duval," he thinks the Jaguars have done a great job on the road game this season.
The 6-foot-4, 253-pound All-Big Ten tight end out of Penn State spent five weeks on injured reserve after suffering a quad injury in Week 5, when the Jags beat the visiting Chiefs. Strange returned for the Jaguars' Week 12 overtime in at Arizona, where he caught five passes for 93 yards.
"I don't like playing anywhere else really," he says of home games at Jacksonville's Everbank Stadium, "but I also love going on the road and going in someone else's environment and just letting the crowd get more and more silent throughout the entire game."
On Sunday afternoon, Strange had five catches for 39 yards and a touchdown.
"It's good going in somewhere else and just taking over," he said.
Strange thinks this Jaguars team is the best in the AFC.
"I think that we do the things that we need to do, and we just need to keep being us, man. That's the biggest thing," he said.
The team has to keep "doing what we need to do to prepare and everything else will take care of itself," Strange added. "You can't really say anything until it's all over -- that final whistle in that final game, so we're not looking ahead.
"I think that we have the confidence, and I think that we know what we have in this building."
The biggest message Strange says that Coen tells the team is "Be Us," and so far that philosophy has worked for the both the first-year head coach and his team.