National Football League

A.J. Brown's historic pace proves he's well worth Eagles' big investment

Published Oct. 25, 2023 2:08 p.m. ET

Nick Sirianni has always been grateful for the abundance of talent on the team he was hired to coach. There are some players on the Philadelphia Eagles, though, who leave him a little more thankful than others.

"I thought I would never say this, but (last) week A.J. (Brown) was having an unbelievable practice," Sirianni said. "And I went up to Mr. (Jeffrey) Lurie (the Eagles owner) — and there's no way I ever thought this would come out of my mouth — I go ‘Thanks for the 100 million dollars to pay A.J. Brown. I really appreciate that.'"

That might go down as one of the best $100 million investments Lurie has ever made, shortly after the Eagles sent first- and third-round picks to the Tennessee Titans in a deal for the star receiver during the 2022 NFL Draft. Part of the deal included giving Brown a four-year, $100 million contract with $56.5 million guaranteed — a stunning investment considering one year earlier the Eagles had traded up in the draft for receiver DeVonta Smith.

But the payoff has been enormous. Brown caught 88 passes for a franchise-record 1,436 yards last season and 11 touchdowns. And he's on a pace to obliterate those numbers this season. Through five weeks, he's been on a historic tear, with 41 catches for 701 yards and three touchdowns. With his 10-catch, 137-yard performance against the Miami Dolphins on Sunday night, he's now topped 125 receiving yards in five straight games, tying the NFL record set by two former Detroit Lions receivers — Pat Studstill (1966) and Calvin Johnson (2012).

"A.J. is a phenomenal player," Sirianni said. "He just has this unbelievable ability to come down with the football. Nobody catches the ball as pretty as A.J. Brown."

That talent was evident long before the Titans took Brown out of Ole Miss in the second round of the 2019 NFL Draft (51st overall) — the fourth receiver taken that year, behind Marquise Brown (Baltimore, 25th), N'Keal Harry (New England, 32nd) and Deebo Samuel (San Francisco, 36th). He was one of the best and most productive receivers in the country in his last two years of college.

But Brian Johnson, the Eagles offensive coordinator, saw Brown's skills on display even earlier than that. Johnson was the quarterbacks coach at Mississippi State when Brown was a high school receiver at Starkville High — just two miles away from campus. Mississippi State was recruiting Brown hard and got him to come to their camps when he was a junior and a senior where they could evaluate high school players.

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For the receivers, Johnson said, they'd do one-on-one drills. They just didn't need to run many to know how good Brown was.

"It got to a point where it was like, ‘A.J., you are good. We don't need to see you run any more one-on-ones,'" Johnson recalled. "'You're a great player.'"

Brown ended up spurning his hometown team and playing for their rivals two hours away. And he put up ridiculous numbers for the Rebels — 160 catches, 2,572 yards and 17 touchdowns in 23 games over his final two seasons. So his success in the NFL hardly came as a surprise.

What no one saw coming, though, was what he's done so far this season. He has 52 catches for 809 yards and three touchdowns. The only receiver playing better is Miami's Tyreek Hill (53-902-7) and he's being talked about as a potential NFL MVP. Brown got off to a slow start through the first two games and had an infamous, heated sideline discussion with Hurts in Week 2 — a discussion both players swear wasn't about the number of balls thrown in Brown's direction.

Whatever they discussed, it obviously worked. Hurts has thrown 59 of his 188 passes in Brown's direction since that discussion — 31.4 percent. And Brown has caught nearly 70 percent of them while on his current tear.

The numbers are incredible. Brown's 701 receiving yards in this stretch are the most in Eagles history in a five-game span — way ahead of the 595 yards Mike Quick had back in 1983. His 809 for the season is the most in Eagles history through seven games, beating the 763 that Terrell Owens had in 2005.

He's making routine catches and circus catches. He's getting wide open and catching contested balls, too. On Sunday night, when he caught 10 passes for 137 yards in the win over the Dolphins, he had to leave the game briefly when a collision at the end of a 30-yard catch left him with a gash on his left cheek. On the first play after he returned, he caught a 32-yard pass down at the Dolphins' 1 even though he said "my vision probably was still a little blurry" on the play.

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It sure seems like Brown is in some kind of zone.

"I wouldn't say I'm in a zone," Brown said. "Just each and every possession, I'm trying to stay locked in with my routes and my pad level and just making sure I catch the ball and breaking it down to the smallest little (detail), and just trying to stay locked in for my team. Whatever I have at the end of the game is what I have at the end of the game. When I have my opportunity, I know I have to come alive."

He has come alive, giving a big jolt to an Eagles offense that sometimes seems to be struggling, even though it ranks third in the NFL. It certainly helps Brown that the Eagles offense is loaded with options in the passing game, making Brown hard to frequently double. And Sirianni said a big reason for Brown's hot streak is that "the other guys are playing good too".

But while Smith (32-383-2), tight end Dallas Goedert (31-324-2) and running back D'Andre Swift (26-128-1) are contributing to the passing game, it's clear that Brown is the go-to guy for Hurts and that the Eagles' passing attack runs through him. Roseman didn't make that big trade and Lurie didn't give Brown that $100 million contract just because they thought he'd be another piece to the puzzle.

They wanted more. And so does Brown. He made that clear when he was told he tied Calvin Johnson's record — something that really seemed to leave him in awe.

"Just to be beside his name, it says a lot," Brown said. "I'm honored. That guy's a Hall of Fame receiver — something I hope to be one day."

It's not a crazy thought, especially if this pace continues. He's in just his fifth NFL season, but he's already caught 325 passes for 5,300 yards and 38 touchdowns, making him the 10th-fastest receiver in NFL history to reach the 5,300-yard mark. He's already been to two Pro Bowls and was a second-team All-Pro last season. And this season he's on pace for a ridiculous 126 catches and 1,965 yards.

And he's still just 26 years old, showing no signs of slowing down.

"He's a great player," Hurts said. "And he works really hard to be where he is and to do what he's doing. We need that from him. He's working and it's showing."

"Nobody goes and snags the football like him," Sirianni added. "Nobody I have seen. It's so much cooler in person to see that and when it's someone on your team. He's on a tear right now."

Ralph Vacchiano is the NFC East reporter for FOX Sports, covering the Washington Commanders, Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants. He spent the previous six years covering the Giants and Jets for SNY TV in New York, and before that, 16 years covering the Giants and the NFL for the New York Daily News. Follow him Twitter at @RalphVacchiano.