The frustrations continue for Eagles receiver A.J. Brown. And those frustrations continue to manifest themselves in various ways.
On Tuesday night, Brown said during a Twitch stream, “If you got me on fantasy, man, get rid of me.”
On Wednesday, he declined to apologize for the comments he made in that setting.
“After the game, I said all the right answers, and y’all still made a story,” Brown told reporters. “In that moment where I’m just talking to my friend, having fun with my friend, I’m not apologizing for that. . . . If you have eyes, you can see that, and so it’s not like I was throwing anybody under the bus. I’m literally trying to laugh through this shit. This shit is tough. But I’m trying to make fun of the situation and to try to get through it.”
Brown otherwise attempted to explain his lingering frustrations by saying that they arise from a desire for the offense to improve.
“Last year, what it was, ‘Thank you for the ring,’” Brown said. “But it’s a new season. [Defenses] adapted, we have to adapt. And we have to continue to like get better and find new ways.”
Brown wants the team to come up with ways that will make better use of his skills and abilities.
“We do need to do a better job of creating for me, trying to help put me in a situation to help to contribute,” Brown said. “But right now it just feels as if I’m screwing it up for everybody.”
He wants to not screw things up. He wants to make a positive difference.
“I see the offense struggling, and I want to help contribute,” Brown said. “And I didn’t get those opportunities. And so, like, I’m gonna have a problem with that, especially with the player that I am, and especially with the player like you want me to be.”
The overriding point is that Brown wants to see the offense perform more efficiently and successfully.
“We can’t just keep slapping a Band-Aid over the defense doing their job and getting us out of trouble,” Brown said. “At what point are we going to pick up our slack as an offense that we say we’re so great? . . . And that’s what I’m getting at. It’s not about, ‘I don’t care about winning, all I care about is stats.’ No. It’s been week after week sometimes we’re not contributing, we’re not doing our job on offense. You can’t keep slapping a Band-Aid over that and expect to win late in the year and think you’re going to go to that at the end of the year. It’s not going to fucking happen.”
Brown knows that, by speaking out, not everyone will understand that his concerns flow from a desire to improve the offense, and not from wanting to get the ball in his hands more often.
“I don’t care if I’m misunderstood, like, I’ll stand up in front of that and fall on that sword over and over again,” Brown said. “Like, it’s about doing what we’re supposed to be doing on offense. And if we are really in this business for trying to get better, we gotta do what we gotta do. And not just say, ‘Oh, it’s about wins, like, as long as we got the win, it’s cool.’ No, that ain’t — you cannot do that, not in this league. We gotta continue to get better.”
Currently, the Eagles’ offense lacks a true identity. Against the Vikings, they threw the ball effectively. Against the Giants, they ran it effectively. Against the Packers (and during other games), it seemed as if the Eagles were using a random play generator — with the exception of the deployment of the tush push during short-yardage situations.
The next challenge comes on Sunday night, against the Lions. And while a win will be nice, Brown believes it will be much nicer to see the offense improving as the regular season inches closer and closer to the playoffs.
As to the question of whether Brown should be so open about his frustrations, this isn’t new. The Eagles could have tried to trade him. They didn’t.
It will be interesting to see whether that changes when the 2025 season ends. How it ends for the Eagles may have a lot to do with that.
