As Eagles AJ Brown ends his silence, the one thing he didn’t say that could save the season

PHILADELPHIA − A.J. Brown laughed when he saw the media cluster waiting at his locker Wednesday afternoon.

The Eagles wide receiver had announced on X, the platform formally known as Twitter, on Tuesday, "I will speak tomorrow."

And like Terrell Owens doing sit-ups in his driveway all those years ago, Brown's 13-minute press conference lived up to the expectations − without the sit-ups, of course.

Brown said the politically correct things, like he didn't want to "compound a negative with a negative" by speaking after both the Dec. 25 win over the Giants and the loss to the Cardinals this past Sunday. Or that he's not mad at Eagles coach Nick Sirianni, offensive coordinator Brian Johnson, or quarterback Jalen Hurts.

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In fact, Brown said he apologized to his teammates Wednesday for being a distraction because they were the ones answering for him.

"Everything that I do, if I say something, if I do anything, I’m classified as a monster, honestly," Brown said. "And honestly, it’s the opposite. You saw my frustration on the field. It wasn’t about the play-calling, it wasn’t none of that. It was about my guy (DeVonta Smith) getting banged up.

"I’m going to need Smitty moving forward. That was it."

Brown has 1,410 yards receiving this season, 87 yards away from breaking the franchise record he set last season. But he insisted that he wasn't mad that he wasn't getting the ball. In the second half against Arizona, Brown was targeted only once. And in the last eight games, Brown has surpassed 100 yards receiving once.

"Honestly, I don’t even ask for the ball in the game," he said. "I don’t talk to Brian (Johnson). I don’t say nothing to nobody. Smitty is the more vocal one. Y’all don’t see that. I don’t say nothing during the game. I don’t ask for the ball.

"But if a wide receiver says anything, he’s classified as a diva, he just wants the ball."

Later, Brown doubled-down on that, in a strange sort of way. And it's here when you realize that there's one thing Brown didn't say.

He didn't say, like Keyshawn Johnson famously said nearly 30 years ago: "Throw me the damn ball!"

And he very well should have. For the Eagles to save their season, advance past the first round of the playoffs, they absolutely need to throw Brown the ball. And they need to do it a lot more than they have been.

Now, the coaching staff finally knows it.

This is what Johnson said Tuesday when asked why Brown was only targeted once: "A.J. is a great player, and we've got to force him the ball sometimes, and make sure we get him going."

And it meshes with what Sirianni has said: "Obviously, when you have a dynamic playmaker like AJ, he's going to want to change the game at all times, and he's capable of doing that at all times."

Don't mistake Brown's comments Wednesday for him not demanding the ball. Because he sort of did that, too.

"Like I said last year, if you throw me the ball 105 times, I’m going to want it 106 times," he said. "That’s me as a wide receiver because I feel like I can change the game at any moment.

"But if I don’t get the ball, he may feel like that’s best. So there’s nothing I can do about it. Like I said, I was not mad about the call, or whatever, I was upset about my partner (Smith) going down."

Brown didn't clarify who the "he" was. It could have been Sirianni, Johnson or Hurts. It doesn't matter. Brown was talking in general about the Eagles' second-to-last series against the Cardinals, when the Eagles faced a first-and-20 from the Cardinals' 30 after Jordan Mailata's holding penalty. At that point, the game was tied at 28.

Yet on that series, Hurts ran the ball twice, then threw a screen pass to Kenny Gainwell on third-and-19 that gained only 4 yards. The Eagles settled for a field goal. Then the Cardinals marched down the field, like they had for the entire game, for the game-winning touchdown.

If Brown had talked after the Giants and Cardinals games, maybe he would have blurted out the fact that he's mad because the Eagles didn't throw him the ball, and that Smith injured his ankle ... blocking on a screen pass to Gainwell!

(Smith was seen after the game in a walking boot and crutches. He didn't have either in the locker room Wednesday, a good sign although he was listed as not practicing, an estimation based on the Eagles holding a walkthrough.)

In that case, as Brown himself said, he would have seemed like a "diva" or a "monster."

And it would've looked especially bad considering that the Eagles have lost four of five games after their 10-1 start, the defense is a mess, and they're most likely relegated to starting the playoffs on the road as a wildcard team.

But yes, the Eagles must throw Brown the ball. Brown knows it. And he realized that the best way to accomplish this was by going off the grid, as it were, and let others speak for him.

"I have no problem with it," Goedert said. "I don’t think anybody on the team did. I think it was really cool. It was a really good thing that he did talking to the team, and kind of making sure everybody knew his perspective, and his thought process behind what he was doing."

But then Brown did reveal something that put it all into perspective.

He cited the Eagles' last play in their 20-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Dec. 18, when Hurts' deep pass to Brown was intercepted. After that game, both Sirianni and Johnson took heat for trying such a risky, deep pass, when Gainwell had broken open underneath.

After all, the Eagles needed about 20 more yards to get into field-goal range.

"The Seattle game, that was on us," Brown said about the last play. "We messed that up. We improvised and we went on our own, and Nick came out and said, 'I wanted to get a flag (for pass interference)' or something like that.

"He made himself look like a fool for us. I have nothing but respect for him."

Think about that for a moment: Who was most likely to suggest that the Eagles improvise on that play?

It didn't work that time, just like like 3rd-and-19 screen to Gainwell didn't on Sunday.

But if the Eagles' season is on the line in the playoffs, whose hands would you rather have the ball in?

By Brown being silent for nearly two full weeks, now everyone knows the answer.

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Eagles AJ Brown ends silence, backs Nick Sirianni. What he didn't say