NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — This was the A.J. Brown game, based on the hype and conversation leading up to the game, and cemented by the star receiver's performance against his old Titans team in a 35-10 Eagles win Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.
This was a game circled on the calendar with Brown matching up against the Titans team he posted two 1,000-yard receiving seasons for, helping them reach the AFC Championship game in 2019 and win back-to-back AFC South titles before he was shockingly traded on the first night of the NFL Draft last spring. On Sunday we found out the game was also circled and highlighted on Brown's schedule.
The fourth-year wideout was unstoppable, catching nine balls for 118 yards and two touchdowns against his former mates, helping the Eagles break open a 7-7 tie with 28 of the final 31 points in a game that, fairly or unfairly, became a referendum on the trade.
Philadelphia became the first team in the NFL with 11 wins this season and looked every bit the part of the NFC favorite to reach the Super Bowl. The Titans, meanwhile, lost for the second straight week and continue to struggle this season against the league's top teams.
The impact of Brown is hard to ignore. He has taken a good Eagles team and made them great. His presence has opened things up for best friend and QB Jalen Hurts who threw for 380 yards and three touchdowns and ran for another score Sunday. He's also drawn defenders away from Philly's other top receiver DeVonta Smith who also had a 100-yard game Sunday, including a 34-yard TD catch on the game's opening drive.
And, as Titans fans know well, he brings a swagger to the table that should not be discounted on a team fighting for a championship.
The best example Sunday came when replay wiped away a Brown touchdown in the second quarter, only for him to shake it off and beat Kristian Fulton again on the very next play for a 40-yard strike that counted on the scoreboard to give Philadelphia the lead for good.
Tennessee was the benefactor of that machismo over the past three seasons. When there was a play to be made in the passing game Brown, more often than not, made it. Last season, while fighting through injuries, Brown helped the Titans earn the No. 1 seed in the AFC despite a broken foot sidelining star running back Derrick Henry for the final nine games of the season. The team's win-loss percentage suffered a greater impact in the games Brown missed (1-4) than in the games without the King (6-3).
That has been evident again this season with the Titans offense struggling mightily without their best aerial playmaker. After an early season run of dominance, Henry has been bottled up in four consecutive games and Tennessee has been unable to get much else going.
The lone bright spot Sunday was rookie Treylon Burks, a first-round draft pick acquired in the Brown trade to Philadelphia and unfairly anointed as his replacement. He turned in a third straight encouraging performance with a gutsy 25-yard touchdown catch in the first quarter through a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit by Eagles safety Marcus Epps which left him laying on the ground for several minutes before leaving the game and entering concussion protocol.
Burks has potential, but Brown was, and is, a sure thing. That's why the Eagles are now knocking on the door of the No. 1 seed in the AFV while the Titans sit at 7-5. While they will still have a chance to clinch the sorry AFC South as soon as next week with a win over the Jaguars, they are yet to provide any evidence they will be able to compete in the playoffs come January.
The consecutive losses to Cincinnati and Philadelphia dropped the Titans to 1-5 against teams with winning records with their lone win coming at Washington in early October.
A disheartening stat for a Titans team that had home field advantage in the AFC playoffs a year ago, but blew the opportunity with a crushing last-play loss to the Bengals in the divisional round. A month later an emotional Jon Robinson vowed to get it right in Tennessee. Two months after that he traded Brown, who was disgruntled over contract negotiations despite having a year remaining on his rookie contract.
We may not ever know if those negotiations could have gone differently or what the straw was that ultimately broke the camel's back, but Brown said after the game he hoped to retire as a Titan. The bottom line is Robinson felt he couldn't get a deal done and opted to trade away one of the franchise's most dynamic and important pieces, and Brown set out Sunday to make him regret it.
Robinson deserves credit for building a winner in Tennessee. The team is headed for a seventh straight winning season with him as general manager and a fifth trip to the postseason. That all started before Mike Vrabel came, before Henry, Brown, Ryan Tannehill and nearly all of the team's winning nucleus arrived.
But the trade of Brown may go down as the most disastrous move in franchise history, lowering the ceiling, seemingly beneath true contender status.
Henry, Tannehill and that defense aren't enough to overcome a torrent of injuries, a retooled offensive line that's struggling and an absence of a consistent big-play passing threat. That's what Brown is.
On Sunday he had more catches, yards and touchdowns than all of the Titans receivers combined. He has nearly as many catches, yards and explosive plays as they do for the season with nine touchdown catches compared to just four by Tennessee's receivers.
But his missing impact is felt beyond just the box score. His mere presence, in Tennessee and now Philadelphia forces safeties to play deeper and shade to his side of the field, removing extra bodies dedicated to stopping the room from the line of scrimmage and opening up passing lanes for others.
The Titans have felt Brown's absence all season long, and Sunday they got a reminder of what they are missing and what could have been.
But Robinson traded him away and, perhaps, the Titans Super Bowl dreams with him.
