RADIO
A.J. Brown 2022 NFL Player Outlook: No Change in Value for the Stud WR Changing Offenses
3 years agoFormer Tennessee Titans' star wide receiver A.J. Brown was recently traded to the Philadelphia Eagles for the 18th and 101st overall picks in the 2022 NFL Draft. Immediately following this move, the Eagles and Brown agreed on a 4-year, $100 million contract, including $57 million guaranteed. Clearly, the team plans to use Brown heavily, and he will immediately become the team's number one receiving threat, ahead of both WR DeVonta Smith and TE Dallas Goedert. These moves also indicate that the Eagles want to return to a more balanced offense after being very run-heavy in the back-end of the last season. Through his first seven games of 2021, Eagles' QB Jalen Hurts attempted 34.6 pass attempts per game. Then, in his final eight games, this number dropped to just 23.8 att/g. This change in their offensive plan came just one week after the team traded TE Zach Ertz to the Arizona Cardinals. The team seemed forced into this run-heavy approach due to their lack of offensive firepower behind their talented tight-end Goedert and standout rookie receiver Smith. Now, the Eagles have 100 million reasons to shift back to the balanced approach we saw towards the beginning of the 2021 season. While it would've been great to see him traded to a pass-heavy offense, we all saw how A.J. Brown flourished in Tennessee's balanced scheme (30.1 pass attempts/game) alongside WR Corey Davis and TE Jonnu Smith, finishing the 2020 season as the WR5 in PPG. In 2021, Brown was the WR15 in PPG while Derrick Henry was still playing, but he dropped to WR24 after Henry's injury. I have no doubts that Brown's talent will translate perfectly to the Eagles' offensive plans, and he should finish as a top-15 WR by the end of the year. However, A.J. Brown's current ADP of WR9 might be a little too close to his ceiling for me to pull the trigger at that price.
