It’s worth noting that while the username – which included the revelation of his real name on JankyRondo’s PlayStation Network friends tab as AJ Brown – suggested that the person might be Brown, the receiver was never featured in the video.
Clips of the exchange circulated on social media Wednesday and spilled over into Eagles coach Nick Sirianni’s meeting with reporters.
“I’m close to answering those questions with this,” Sirianni said, via ESPN. “He’s working hard and he’s a big part of this game plan [for Sunday’s game against the Lions] and he will be a big part of the game plan going forward. He’s working like crazy when he’s here and I’m excited to get him.”
When it comes to this persistent topic, Brown’s lack of production certainly doesn’t help matters. In Brown’s last five games, he has seen 35 targets, good for a decent average of seven per game. He’s caught just 19 of them for 264 yards and two touchdowns, with nearly half of those yards and both scores coming in a 28-22 win over the Vikings in Week 7.
Even in that game, Brown looked deflated as he celebrated his first goal, almost as if the whole thing had worn him down.
The continued drama prompted some to wonder if the Eagles might trade Brown at the deadline, but when it was over and Brown remained an Eagle, general manager Howie Roseman succinctly explained why he wouldn’t send the three-time Pro Bowler another time: “You just don’t get rid of guys like that.”
After the deadline, Brown played in Philadelphia’s scoreless win over the Green Bay Packers on Monday night and was all but invisible, seeing two snaps over the majority of the contest before a questionable fourth-down call called for a deep throw to Brown that fell incomplete in the game’s final minute. He left Lambeau Field with two catches for 13 yards in a 10-7 victory, adding fresh fuel to the lingering fire.
“If you look at how the game went, there were a lot of plays going [Brown] that for different reasons not,” Sirianni said Wednesday. “For example, [DeVonta Smith]the touchdown, that play is going to AJ; they took it away, and [Hurts] threw it over. You can’t look at statistics and just say this is what’s happening. You can’t paint the picture that way.”
Sirianni made a valid point with this response, a snapshot of the difficulty in assessing a player’s importance or lack thereof in an offense. As the coach emphasized Wednesday, just because Brown isn’t putting up huge numbers over the past three seasons — three straight 1,000-yard campaigns that included a trio of second-team All-Pro nods — doesn’t mean he isn’t important to their plans.
“AJ Brown is one of the best receivers in the NFL, so of course we’re trying to get him in the game every single time,” Sirianni said.
Still, until Brown starts producing at the pace most people are used to, the narrative will continue — even in the largely lawless land of live streaming.