A.J. Brown is a Superstar Held Back by His Offense

Roses are red, the Eagles are green, A.J. Brown is the best wide receiver I’ve seen. I’m going to get my bias out of the way in the introduction here before giving actionable information on how to play Brown this season. I am both an Eagles fan and specifically an A.J. Brown fan. He was my favorite WR in the league dating back to his days on the Titans. Needless to say, I was ecstatic when we traded for Brown during the 2022 draft. And I think even with my bias aside, you’d be hard-pressed to make the case that Brown is not a top-five real-life NFL WR. Let’s first dig into his talent profile before examining the volume concerns that are rightfully keeping down his ADP.

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A.J. Brown is a Superstar

Brown is elite in virtually any metric you look at that tries to isolate WR talent. I particularly like the receiver ratings from ESPN Analytics. The table below represents every season of Brown’s pro career. He hasn’t dipped below a 72 Open Score or a 78 Overall rating in any season. Open score is a separation over expectation metric. It looks at a receiver's openness compared to the typical receiver's openness given the route, coverage, and depth. And Brown’s 91 Open Score in 2024 tied Malik Nabers and Mike Evans for first in the league. And he was number one in overall rating as well.

First downs per route run (1DRR) is another one of my favorite WR stats. It’s similar to yards per route run (YPRR) but normalizes some of the big variance plays like 90-yard touchdowns. I like to think of 1DRR as the success rate version of YPRR. The graph below is very busy, but I want you to focus on the top-left corner. The graph shows routes per game on the x-axis and 1DRR on the y-axis. Brown led the league in 1DRR among qualified WRs, landing second if Puka Nacua ran enough routes to qualify. We’ll get back to his number of routes per game later, though.

And Brown is not a catch-and-fall-down receiver. There is a negative correlation between average target depth and yards after the catch (YAC). That is to say, it gets more difficult to generate YAC on targets deeper down the field. But there are some players in the top-right quadrant of the graph below that still earn more YAC than you’d expect given their deep target depth. Brown is one of those players, along with other superstars like Brian Thomas Jr., Justin Jefferson, and Nico Collins.

The Eagles Run a 1980s Offense

So, why is Brown not going in Round 1 in fantasy drafts? It’s purely because of the expected pass/run split for the Eagles. Going back to the graph above that looked at routes per game and 1DRR, you’ll remember that A.J. Brown was on the left side of the graph. That is to say, he ran a below-average number of routes per game. That’s odd for a clear-cut number one WR. For example, Brown ran a similar number of routes per game as Tyler Boyd did last season. Ja’Marr Chase played essentially 8.5 more games last season than A.J. Brown if you divide Chase’s total number of routes by Brown’s per-game pace. To say that another way, Chase played the equivalent of a 25.5-game season using Brown’s per-game routes. That is insanity.

The graph below shows pass rate over expected (PROE) on the x-axis and how much that fluctuated weekly on the y-axis. It’s probably not surprising, given what I said above, that the Eagles and Bengals are on opposite sides of the graph. The 2024 Eagles had the second-lowest pass rate of any team since 2011. But extremely low pass rates like that almost always increase sharply the following season.

What could happen that would cause the Eagles to pass more? There are at least three ways that it could happen. Obviously, an injury to Saquon Barkley would spike their pass rate, but even a reduction in Barkley’s outlier long-TD rate would work. The second way would be their difficult schedule, forcing the Eagles to actually try in the fourth quarter of games. And the final way would be defensive regression, with defensive success far more volatile than offensive success year-to-year. I think the Eagles almost certainly pass more than they did last season. The question is will that pass rate spike enough to let Brown crush his ADP?

2025 Draft Strategy

A.J. Brown is currently going off the board as WR10 and 18th overall according to 4for4’s Multisite ADP Tool. And I wish I had a hotter take than this, but that’s exactly where he should be drafted. I don’t think he should be drafted ahead of Drake London, who has a shot at leading the entire league in targets this season. But I now think Brown should be going ahead of Ladd McConkey, given what the Rashawn Slater injury could do to the Chargers’ ecosystem. But when I do take Brown at cost, I’m prioritizing stacking him with Jalen Hurts to double down on the Eagles pass game bet. I think both Brown and Hurts are fine at cost and do have contingent upside if Barkley gets hurt.

Bottom Line

• A.J. Brown is a superstar WR, leading the league in both ESPN Analytics’ Open Score and Overall receiver rating last year.
• Brown also led qualifying WRs in first downs per route run and generated more yards after the catch than you’d expect given his deep target depth.
• But he’s held back by his offense, as the 2024 Eagles had the second-lowest pass rate of any team since 2011.
• The path to Brown crushing his ADP is through a spike in the Eagles’ pass rate.
• While their pass rate should increase, the question is whether it will increase enough to let Brown run sufficiently more routes per game than players like Tyler Boyd.
• Brown is currently going off the board as WR10 and 18th overall according to 4for4’s Multisite ADP Tool.
• My lukewarm take is that is exactly where he should be drafted, with players like Drake London going ahead of Brown because London has an actual path to lead the league in targets.