LONDON -- Facing a fourth-and-5 from the Philadelphia 27-yard line, the Jacksonville Jaguars got the look they wanted from the Eagles' defense. So, receiver Parker Washington knew quarterback Trevor Lawrence was going to throw him the football.
Washington got a clean release off the line of scrimmage but then had to fight through contact with Eagles cornerback Riq Woolen, so he didn't see the ball in the air at first. As he got closer to the goal line, though, he finally picked it up.
"As soon as I saw it, I was like, 'OK, there we go,'" he said.
Washington reached out with his right hand, grabbed the ball and pulled it into his body while falling backward into the end zone. That gave the Jaguars the lead with little more than three minutes left in the fourth quarter, and they eventually won 19-17 on Cam Little's walk-off 57-yard field goal at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday.
There we go, indeed.
PARKER WASHINGTON, WOW. JAGS TAKE THE LEAD.@PHIvsJAX on NFL Network Stream on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/ubE4xivDcD
That sequence isn't anything unusual for the 2023 sixth-round pick, who has been one of the league's most clutch receivers since Week 11 of 2025. Over that span, Washington has 17 catches for a league-high 381 yards on third and fourth downs; his 22.4 yards per catch there is the best in the NFL of any player with double-digit catches.
The foundation for Washington's proficiency began long before he even started school, and it has helped him play as if he's 6-foot-4 despite being 5-foot-10 with 29-inch arms. As the Jaguars' 2026 leader in catches (25), receiving yards (352) and receiving TDs (four), he is well on his way to a contract extension that could pay him more than $30 million annually as one of the NFL's top-paid receivers.
"We consider him an elite wide receiver," Lawrence said. "I don't know what everybody else thinks, but we feel like he's pretty freaking good."
How Washington mastered contested catches
The aggressiveness to make every catch is innate, but Washington's expanded catch radius developed as a result of a game he played with his father, Christopher, beginning at 3 years old and continuing through college.
"One thing me and my dad used to do, he would grab -- it would be anything, piece of balled-up paper, wrap tape around a piece of paper or something like that -- and he would [throw it to him and] say, 'Catch it with your eyes,'" Washington said. "And what I would do, I would literally catch it with my eyes and sometimes the paper would hit me with my face or whatever. So it was just a game, but it was fun.