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Puppet Master A.J. Brown with Another Cryptic Instagram Post
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
A.J. Brown posted the caption “Using me but not using me” on social media:
Why is this a story you probably wonder? Because A.J. Brown is media literate and he understands how to use things like social to his advantage and get his message across. We are his puppets. He says something and people listen. He tweets something, people react. He writes a caption and sadly I have to take time out of my day to analyze it. Why? Because whether you like it or not, or you think to yourself, “who cares?” more people do than don’t. Especially after he was seen and heard saying, “Just throw the fucking ball!” on Sunday after his second touchdown:
Was it frustration? A wide receiver just showing emotion? A plea to Kevin Patullo? Who knows. Unless NFL Films had him mic’d up and we get a complete director’s cut of everything Brown said on Sunday, or a reporter gets him to admit why or what he said in a scrum this week, we’ll probably never know.
The one thing we all can say is A.J. Brown is in full troll mode just like Joel Embiid was prior to last season. The difference is there are trolls who are winners (Brown) and trolls who are losers (Embiid). FWIW, I’m not saying Embiid is a loser in life, but in his NBA career. Brown is afforded a longer leash after he scores two touchdowns and the Eagles win and the fact he was lifting a Lombardi trophy last year. Also because his cap hit if he was traded would be egregious.
So why does he do it? 48 hours ago I wouldn’t know, but last night I saw this clip from Theo Von’s podcast where Pete Davidson talked about the side effect of media attention and how it sent him to rehab. This is a crazy example out of left field so bear with me. In the clip he mentions how he didn’t get better until he realized all those dumb media stories written about him that have a morsel of truth in them, people rarely care about or remember in a couple of hours:
I think that’s what Brown goes through. He reads everything about him and thinks people actually care when really I think a small majority would be fixated on everything if he didn’t feed into it himself so much. Tweeting Bible verses after wins or writing captions like this won’t stop the media from discussing if A.J. Brown is happy in Philly or not. But when he does talk you’re like ‘oh shit this dude makes a lot of sense’ and you understand his frustrations:
But it doesn’t help when he does this immature trolling shit. Because you wonder how long he can go with this until he sours in the minds of Eagles fans who support him the most. It already got toxic two years ago when the outside noise got so loud he had to call into WIP. The stuff with “Inner Excellence” would’ve blown up into a huge controversy all off-season if the Eagles didn’t win. Thank god they did and it turned into a feelgood story. You can argue this is a nothingburger and it probably is – with cheese. But he’s also feeding the sharks. Two things can be right.
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com