NASHVILLE — The pursuit for a game-changing wide receiver for the Tennessee Titans felt like a hopeless cause for so long throughout the history of the franchise.
They had not been able to find a true gamebreaker at that position since Derrick Mason played his last game for them in the 2004 season despite several attempts to do so. Tyrone Calico, Kenny Britt, Justin Hunter…….heck they even brought in Randy Moss at one point at the end of his career.
After all of that time spent searching, A.J. Brown has become that game-changing receiver the Titans have so desperately been looking for. And the combination of Brown and Corey Davis, who was drafted to be that guy, that the Titans have right now has been exactly what the doctor ordered.
Brown has 51 receptions for 837 yards and nine touchdowns in 11 games for the Titans this season and has made some dazzling plays along the way. From the one-handed touchdown grab in Jacksonville to the human bulldozer he turned into in Baltimore, Brown has become one of the most exciting players in the NFL to watch with the ball in his hands.
It hasn’t all been perfect, however. Drops have plagued Brown as of late. He’s been credited with five drops on the season according to Pro Football Reference and fumbled twice in the 41-35 loss to the Cleveland Browns on Dec. 6. But the good has far outweighed the bad.
ESPN NFL Nation Titans reporter, host of Nate & TD and Talking with TD, Turron Davenport joined Robby & Rexrode on Friday and said that Brown’s drops aren’t a huge concern at this point.
“I think it’s something that passes and it’s not something that I would be overly concerned with,” Davenport said. “This is what you get, though, when you have a guy that is so predicated on getting yards after the catch. Sometimes he’s going to turn upfield without the ball in his hands, and that’s more or less what you’ve had. That drop that you mentioned, he said it himself that he felt the corner coming down and he was trying to make the catch and turn upfield and make a move to get the yards afterwards. It’s something that you’re going to have, but I don’t think it’s a major issue. I think it will be minimized. You’ve got to take the good with the bad because when he does catch the ball and turn upfield, we’ve seen what happens. It balances out.”
So where exactly does Brown rank among the best wide receivers in the NFL? There are parts of his game that are already elite. There are parts that still need some work, particularly in terms of consistency.
Here’s my list of the top 15 WRs in the league:
- Davante Adams, Green Bay
- DeAndre Hopkins, Arizona
- Tyreek Hill, Kansas City
- Michael Thomas, New Orleans
- Julio Jones, Atlanta
- Mike Evans, Tampa Bay
- Stefon Diggs, Buffalo
- DK Metcalf, Seattle
- Keenan Allen, Los Angeles
- Amari Cooper, Dallas
- Calvin Ridley, Atlanta
- A.J. Brown, Tennessee
- Allen Robinson, Chicago
- Chris Godwin, Tampa Bay
- Adam Thielen, Minnesota
The exciting part for Titans fans is that Brown clearly has the ability to continue to climb up the ladder on this list. His ability to run after the catch and either make tacklers miss or run straight through them is already elite. With a little more consistency, it’s only a matter of time before Brown cracks into the top 10……maybe even the top 5 in the entire league some day.
And that’s something that a Titans wide receiver hasn’t been able to say in a long, long time.
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