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Bible-Quoting A.J. Brown was Targeted Nine Times on Sunday, They Were Just Crappy Targets
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Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Eagles won a game while A.J. Brown didn’t catch a lot of passes. Just two receptions for seven yards in a 31-25 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Afterward, A.J. posted on social a snippet of a bible verse, the entire thing copied here and his portion highlighted:
Jesus called the Twelve to him, and sent them out in pairs. He gave them authority and power to deal with the evil opposition. He sent them off with these instructions:
“Don’t think you need a lot of extra equipment for this. You are the equipment. No special appeals for funds. Keep it simple.
“And no luxury inns. Get a modest place and be content there until you leave.
“If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw. Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”
Then they were on the road. They preached with joyful urgency that life can be radically different; right and left they sent the demons packing; they brought wellness to the sick, anointing their bodies, healing their spirits.
I’m no bible expert, but part of the message is contentedness, to not force your beliefs on others. The job of the disciples was to witness faithfully and not be aggressive in forcing some outcome.
Of course, I could be completely wrong, and only A.J. knows what he’s trying to say here. Maybe we get an ordained minister up in here to translate.
But anywho, the bigger story is that that Brown was targeted a bunch in this game. The targets just stunk. The Eagles, ironically perhaps, tried to force him the ball:
So we’ve got a slant that was thrown behind him, a deflected 7-yard out, two sideline go balls that Jalen Hurts threw out of bounds, a comeback route that was probably DPI, and two 7-yard stop routes in which the ball didn’t get there quick enough and/or was a stare down.
A.J. Brown leads the Eagles with 28 targets this season. That’s seven per game on average. Problem is, he’s only caught 14 of those balls, for a 50% catch rate. Historically, he’s never finished a season below 60% catch rate, and in the last two years he finished with a 69.1 and 67.1, respectively.
When you go down the list, Brown is currently 124th in receiving percentage among 137 qualified players this year. He has 0 drops. But you look at the other names around him and realize he’s not the only one dragging below career averages:
Mike Evans, Jerry Jeudy, Tee Higgins, Davante Adams, etc. These aren’t nobodies.
Based on limited knowledge, i.e. what our eyeballs are telling us without the all-22 deep dive, it feels like A.J.’s route tree is really limited. They throw the slant and sideline go ball, which they should always do. Those are his two best routes, bread and butter, game-changing type of stuff. But beyond that, you see that stop/comeback route and some weak stuff in the 5-7 yard range that feels a little janky. He never has any targets over the middle of the field, they don’t throw him screens, and he doesn’t get any of those crossers or underneath rub type of routes that Dallas Goedert gets. He doesn’t get red zone fades or anything similar because they either run the tush push or short-yardage trickeration, like the shovel pass and underhand toss on Sunday.
This is the same A.J., mind you, who last week went for 109 yards and a touchdown. There’s nothing broken in terms of the player himself, or Hurts’ ability to get the ball to him. Jalen just wasn’t very sharp targeting Brown on Sunday and it felt like most of those looks were forced. What’s more is that DeVonta Smith didn’t even get a second half target, so it’s not strictly an A.J. Brown issue, it’s an issue of spreading the ball out and getting everybody involved in a balanced way that doesn’t require throwing low-percentage passes towards a specific dude.
My level of concern, however, is a 1.3 out of 10. We’ve seen this movie before. We saw it last year and the final scene was a lifting of the Lombardi trophy.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com