PHILADELPHIA — It is time to remove the “misunderstood” label from A.J. Brown.
He has made himself clear — again and again.
He has detailed why catching the football is existential for him. There is no longer any mystery about the source of his misery. The three-time All-Pro wide receiver is inarguably equipped to help the Philadelphia Eagles win, and the 2025 Eagles offense has too often stagnated with Brown’s production too often reduced to a non-factor.
Monday night’s 10-7 win over the Green Bay Packers was the latest example. Brown was targeted only three times in a defensive game that was scoreless at halftime, and only once after the opening drive. Given Brown’s previous behavior, it should be no surprise that he continued to be candid about his state of mind while playing Madden late Tuesday night with his friend, a streamer who goes by Janky Rondo, on the live-streaming platform Twitch.
“Everything good?” Rondo asked.
“No,” Brown said, chuckling. “Where have you been?”
“You’re my dog,” Rondo said with a laugh. “Like, I still gotta check up.”
“Like family good, yeah,” Brown continued, pausing between stints of laughter. “Everything else, no. It’s a s—show. ‘How you been.’ I been struggling, brother.”
The only thing newsworthy about their exchange was how public it was. Two friends privately bemoaning their jobs over a video game never makes a headline. But anyone watching the stream heard Brown blow off steam while playing as the Eagles.
“If you got me on fantasy, man, get rid of me.”
“Let’s show 11 some love …”
His virtual self caught a touchdown.
“You see what I’m saying? This has been the only positive.”
His virtual self logged nine catches, 168 yards and two touchdowns.
“That’s the only highlight of the damn football I’ve been living right now.”
Again, with privacy — no issue. So, it’s worth questioning whether it is even an issue for the Eagles.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said “it’s business as usual” in the building when asked Wednesday about Brown’s latest self-expression. Managing Brown — cryptic posts, Twitch streams, et. al — is indeed not new.
Players have publicly defended Brown. Left tackle Jordan Mailata described him as “a total pro,” a leader who is known differently behind the scenes than how he is often portrayed. Nickel safety Cooper DeJean called Brown “a great mentor.” Last Thursday, when a reporter asked Brown if he still wants to be in Philadelphia, DeVonta Smith, Brown’s lockermate, interjected, “Why wouldn’t he be?”
Brown sometimes acts as someone who has forgotten he is a major public figure. He came from humble beginnings. He has spoken about growing up in a trailer in Starkville, Miss., and eating ketchup sandwiches. He pitched crab apples like baseballs and dragged a tire through the dirt of his father’s property. Now he’s the sort of person capable of launching a self-help book a teammate gave him to best-seller status simply by reading it on a sideline.
“Sometimes I forget who I am in a sense of how big stuff can get blown out of proportion,” Brown told reporters in January, after that book became a trend. “To me, I’m just being myself, and I’m not trying to cause a distraction and stuff like that.”
Of course, Brown has come a long way since Starkville. He is 28. He has spent almost a decade in the spotlight. He starred in the Southeastern Conference. He reached the AFC Championship Game as a second-round rookie with the Tennessee Titans. He was the centerpiece of arguably the biggest trade GM Howie Roseman has ever made. He has signed two major contract extensions with the Eagles. He has played in two Super Bowls, winning one. He gave the commencement speech for the Ole Miss Class of 2025.
Each of those events, along with a slew of others, involved media appearances. Brown’s words have produced hundreds of headlines. His quotes have summoned a sea of stories. He understands this, too. He studied journalism at Ole Miss. And every football institution he’s played for has a staff of media relations employees who in part specialize in preparing players to represent themselves publicly. Bob Lange, the Eagles’ PR chief, stood next to Brown at his locker when reporters questioned the receiver about his words on Twitch.
On some level, Brown knows the reach of his words. He knows that Rondo’s Twitch account has more than 73,000 followers. He knows that someone among the 45,516 people (and counting) who viewed Tuesday night’s stream is bound to latch onto his words. He knows his words can end up on social media, getting clipped and retweeted and shared until they reach the attention of the Eagles and the reporters who cover them.
And around and around we go.
But the cycle is maddening when the answer is already known. After 10 Brown-oriented questions on Wednesday, two about Brown’s state of mind, Sirianni said, “I’m close to being done answering these questions with this,” when asked how he reconciles with Brown given his player’s comments on Twitch.
“He’s working hard and he is a big part of this game plan, and he’ll be a big part of the game plan going forward,” Sirianni continued. “He’s working like crazy when he is here and I’m excited to have him.”
There is no mystery. Nothing to be misunderstood.
Brown saw just three targets in Monday night’s win against the Green Bay Packers. (Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
There is a conversation, instead, to be had about openness. Rarely are star players as open about their feelings as Brown. The reserved are understandably concerned about explaining themselves poorly or getting their words twisted and thrown back in their face or at their team. There was a time when Brown was more reserved, too. But avoiding media in a weeks-long silence during the 2023 collapse didn’t work, and Brown had to clear the air in a highly attended locker room session.
Brown would be just as correct to hang a sign that reads, “Damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” under the sign above his locker that reads, “Always Open.”
That sentiment arose when I asked Brown why he felt comfortable expressing himself on a widely public platform like Twitch.
“Because after the game, I said all the right answers. Y’all still made a story,” Brown said. “In that moment where I’m just talking to my friend, having fun with my friend, I’m not apologizing for that. Like I said, ’cause if you have eyes, you can see that. And so, like, it’s not that I was throwing anybody on the bus. I’m literally trying to laugh through this s—. This s— is tough. But I’m trying to make fun of the situation and to try to get through it. So, you know, it is what it is, man.”
When Brown speaks, his analysis and criticisms are fair. On Wednesday, he expressed an understanding of his role. He shared joy in Smith’s touchdown catch on Monday, which Sirianni said originated from a play intended for Brown — but Brown drew the safety and freed Smith. Brown disclosed the difficulty of beating the “cloud coverage” — when multiple defenders cover short and deep zones to stop a receiver — defenses have been deploying against him.
“We play Detroit on Sunday night,” Brown said. “They play a lot of man. Pretty sure they’re gonna cloud. That’s just what comes with it. You even look back at that Denver game, playing against the best corner in the game. They started going one-on-one. I started winning. The end of the game — cloud. That’s just what it’s gonna be for me. I think it’s fair for me to even say, like, I feel like 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 expressed optimism that Sirianni and first-time offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo would figure the schematic problems out.
“We always go into it with a great game plan, trying to do certain things,” Brown said. “And I understand how the game goes. Sometimes defenses take it away.”
And the danger of their offense continuing to stagnate? It is evident that the Eagles offense can’t count on leaning on its defense all season.
“We can’t just keep slapping the Band-Aid over the defense doing their job and getting us out of trouble,” Brown said. “At what point are we gonna pick up our slack as an offense — that we’re so great, you know? And that’s where I’m getting at. It’s not about we’re not winning or 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. So you can’t just keep slapping a Band-Aid over that and you expect to win later in the year and you think you’re gonna go to it at the end of the year. It’s not gonna f—ing happen. It’s not gonna happen. It’s not gonna happen. Last year, what it was, thank you for the ring, but it’s a new season. They adapted, we have to adapt, and we have to continue to get better and try to find new ways.”
The Eagles will host perhaps their biggest challenger yet in the Detroit Lions on Sunday night.
If the Eagles offense falters, if Brown is a non-factor, if the wide receiver tweets or twitches or sends a message to the B Free Franklin Post Office by telegram, the resulting reaction will be many things.
But Brown won’t be misunderstood.