AJ Brown breaks his silence on Eagles' frustration – The Athletic
DeVonta Smith saw the herd of reporters crowding around his neighbor's empty locker and giggled. He knew exactly why they were waiting. He politely maneuvered his way through the cameras and microphones to grab a few items from his locker's shelf, and as he weaved his way back through the crowd of Philly media, he joked with a knowing smile that everyone had seen AJ Brown's tweet must have.
The joke depended on everyone understanding how communication works. By announcing “I'll speak tomorrow,” Brown had marked the much-anticipated end to his weeks-long silence that fueled public speculation about the cause of the star receiver's recent on-field frustration.
After a flawed third-and-20 screen resulted in just a field goal in Sunday's 35-31 loss to the Arizona Cardinals and Smith suffered a sprained ankle while being rolled up by a defender while blocking on the screen, Brown shook his head violently as he returned to the sideline.
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That, too, had been a form of communication, an incomplete message to thousands of viewers who spent the next few days wondering 1) why Brown was frustrated, 2) how important it was, and 3) whether he needed to explain himself.
And that, too, had been a form of communication, a swirling cloud of comments that ultimately led Brown, through various sources of social and professional media, to ask himself again: 1) why he was frustrated, 2) how important this was, and 3) whether he had to explain himself.
That's how communication sometimes works in the NFL. In a league whose massive revenues are supported by millions of dollars in viewership and which the NFL believes has adopted mandatory media policies to encourage those viewership numbers, there is little room for players to hide.
Because the end of Nick Sirianni's scheduled Wednesday press conference overlapped with the opening of the Eagles' locker room, the majority of local media crowded one side of the auditorium so they could be closer to the exit door (and therefore Brown). like passengers getting up early after a plane lands.
It's an environment in which players accept (sometimes reluctantly) to play the game they love for a league minimum price of $750,000 per year. But it's also an environment that can make it difficult for a team to communicate both internally and externally, as both streams of communication naturally intersect, which can lead to a murky pool of confusion as losses continue.
Frustration, like most emotions, makes communication difficult. The Eagles, who are 1-4 after a 10-1 start, are stuck in a conundrum that requires them to constantly explain the root causes of frustrations that have not yet been resolved. And because the causes of those frustrations persist, the actual frustrations persist.
They are a team with a coach who is learning to manage his emotions. Sirianni said after a viral video went viral of him spouting nonsense to Kansas City Chiefs fans as they left a “Monday Night Football” victory in November: “I'm not going to hide who I am.” But after the head coach in the After third-year tackle Haason Reddick, the edge rusher position coach, and Smith blasted in the final minutes of their Christmas Day run against the New York Giants, Sirianni admitted that they “need to be in high-pressure areas.” See me calmly and not tense.”
“There is a time and a place to be tense and there is a time and a place not to be,” Sirianni said at the time. “I know that’s something I always have to work on as a head coach.”
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The players have also worked on managing their emotions. It was Brown's refusal to speak to the media after the Giants game that initially sparked speculation about his frustration. “I was raised if I didn't have anything nice to say, I won't say anything at all,” he told reporters. It was a cryptic response that raised a question that wasn't answered until Wednesday: What didn't Brown have something nice to say about?
Some players appreciated Brown's silence. Left tackle Jordan Mailata said he understands Brown is being cautious. “You can say some pretty bad things that you can’t back away from,” Mailata said. “Recognizing that is the team’s goal.”
But by continuing to avoid the media at moments when his presence was imperative, Brown left it to Sirianni, offensive coordinator Brian Johnson and his teammates to answer questions about the receiver's thoughts and whereabouts.
They tried to defend Brown while admitting they couldn't speak for him. Sirianni said Monday: “There's nobody as good as AJ, and he's one of our very best players and one of our best players since I've been here the last three years,” Mailata recounted on a Monday talk radio hit with WIP-FM that Brown had organized an escape room trip for the entire team a few days before Sunday's game to build chemistry.
“I didn't like it when I told them about the escape room. I didn’t want to,” Mailata told The Athletic. “But I offered it as a bone because I had seen a lot of stuff about AJ. But, dude, this guy is a real leader, bro. He will lead by example. I accept his silence. I respect that.”
But Brown apologized to his teammates during a team meeting Wednesday morning for putting them in a situation where they had to cover for him. Later that day, as Brown spoke to reporters at his locker for nearly 13 minutes, he explained that “they shouldn't be answering questions on my behalf.” Jalen Hurts, a close friend of Brown's, said he appreciated Brown “for his courage to do that in front of the team.”
“I think it’s allowed us to just have more conversations about what we’re doing,” the Eagles quarterback said. “Of course we need the results we want. But it’s a process that will lead to that.”
AJ Brown, who posted 125-plus yards for six straight weeks earlier this season, has had just one 100-yard performance in the Eagles' last eight games. (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
This shows again how collective frustrations make communication difficult. Hurts himself had difficulty with this. After the Eagles lost to the Seattle Seahawks in the final seconds of a road game on Monday night, with them leading until the final seconds of the game, a frustrated Hurts said during his postgame interview, “I don't think we were committed enough.” Days later, he tried to retract the comment, suggesting he was calling out his teammates: “When I say 'we,' I mean me.”
Of course I am also part of the we. But since Sirianni, Hurts and several players have said so often that they are not a blame-shifting team, Hurts likely felt compelled to clarify. Hurts and Brown were also often seen on television broadcasts this season, providing a lively back-and-forth on the sidelines. Brown said since they are both friends, “sometimes it looks more heated than it actually is.” The recipient also felt like he was unfairly targeted just because he was the one whose reactions were caught on camera .
“All you see is, ‘AJ Brown is frustrated. AJ this. AJ that,” Brown said. “Everyone in this locker room is frustrated. So why are you singling me out for being frustrated? Just because I shake my head, am I showing emotion? You can see that everyone in the stadium has bad body language. You are frustrated. Yes, I wanted to clarify that. Because it's not about me. We’re all frustrated.”
The Eagles, whose poor defense prompted a coaching change, were also dysfunctional on offense. The discrepancy between their scoring average during their 10-1 start (28.2) and this 1-4 stretch (22.6) is almost a touchdown difference. Hurts, Brown and Smith all lost fumbles in a loss to the Dallas Cowboys. Hurts was intercepted while trying to throw deep to Brown in double coverage on their final drive against the Seahawks, when a shorter pass could have put them in field goal range to send the game into overtime. And in Sunday's loss to the Cardinals, Brown was targeted just once in the second half for an 18-yard completion.
Brown defended Johnson's play call in Philadelphia's final sequence against the Cardinals. After a Mailata holding penalty resulted in a first-and-20 situation at the Arizona 30, Johnson called two rushes and a wide receiver screen on third-and-19 that gained 4 yards. Johnson said Tuesday that he decided the plays taking into account the clock (which was down to 2:33) and the kick line for a 43-yard attempt (Jake Elliott made a career-long 61-yarder in Week 2 against the Minnesota Vikings). have. .
Brown said that on second-and-16, where Hurts lost 3 yards, “if someone goes left and blocks a certain person, it's a 30-yard touchdown,” he said he told the team Wednesday morning that the fault lies “not with the coaches, but with us”. He admitted that as a receiver he always wants the ball. “But if I don’t get the ball that’s fine, (Johnson) maybe felt like that was best. There’s nothing I can do about it,” he said. And when he shook his head as he left the field, it was because he was upset that Smith got hurt, not because of Johnson's calls to play.
“That was it,” Brown said. “People might not believe that. But I do not care.”
Brown also stressed he wasn't frustrated with Sirianni – “People say I'm fighting with Nick? I’m not mad at Nick,” he said – revealing how the Eagles coach publicly blamed himself for the Seattle interception when the players themselves were to blame. Sirianni gave reporters a strange explanation that he called off the play thinking they might interfere with a pass. Instead, the players improvised the decision themselves.
“I can tell you that there may be things that Nick wants to fix about himself, I say. But one thing I can respect is that loyalty isn’t one of them,” Brown said. “And I say that because he stands up for us when it has nothing to do with him. For example, in the Seattle game, we messed it up. We improvised and headed out on our own and Nick came out and said I wanted to try and get a flag or something crazy like that. He really looked like an idiot to us. I have nothing but respect for him. You know what I mean? None of our coaches do that.”
It is worth noting that Sirianni's strange statement at least called into question his offending judgment, which an observer looking at the offense's subsequent outward displays of frustration could reasonably have linked the two. It was a clumsy form of communication that initially protected the players but ultimately drew them into the drama.
But collective frustrations make communication difficult, right?
“This is what happens when you try to get to the next step. Gravity pulls against you,” Brown said. “Everything pulls against you and I think that’s what this team is going through. And I think if we get through this, we'll be fine. We will be exactly where we need to be.”
(Top photo: Bill Streicher / USA Today)
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