How the Tennessee Titans rookie receiver has morphed into a star.
At 2-4 scoring less than 20 points per game, suggesting that anyone on the Tennessee Titans offense was going to be worthy of an award was crazy talk.
However, Ryan Tannehill‘s promotion came at just the right time and everyone on the offense has benefited from it in some way or another. Maybe the biggest beneficiary was A.J. Brown.
Don’t get me wrong, Brown was productive before the QB change but in the first five games of the season Brown was averaging 50 yards per game and he had 2 touchdowns.
In the seven games since Tannehill has taken over, he is averaging 73 yards per game and has four touchdowns.
That doesn’t look like a huge difference, but look at what happens when you look at that difference over the course of a season:
W/o Tannehill: 800 yards, 7 TDs
With Tannehill: 1,157 yards, 9 TDs
Jonah Tuls ranked the OROY race and Brown ended up in 4th with Tuls saying:
"A.J. Brown, the Tennessee Titans second-round pick, has been on the upswing as of late as the team’s top option at wide receiver. Brown’s efforts prove he is a viable deep threat as well as a safety blanket over the middle. He has struck a notable rapport with Ryan Tannehill since taking over the starting quarterback spot from Marcus Mariota.In the last three games, Brown has racked up 333 receiving yards and three touchdowns on 12 catches. I strongly believe Tannehill has played his way into becoming the starter for the Titans going forward, and because of that, Brown should be in line for a monster sophomore season — if this recent stretch is any indication of their strong chemistry."
I think the race has turned into a receiver vs running back contest with Kyler Murray basically losing most of his ground over the last few weeks.
That means that it should come down to Josh Jacobs, D.K. Metcalf and A.J. Brown.
There is a chance that the Oakland Raiders shut Jacobs down with the playoffs nearly completely out of reach for them at this point.
Metcalf and Brown should battle for that top spot, but here is where I think Brown separates himself.
Over the rest of the season, this is a list of the defenses that each team faces and their ranking in pass defense:
Tennessee Titans: Houston Texans (27th), New Orleans Saints (20th) and Houston Texans (27th)
Seattle Seahawks: Carolina Panthers (15th), Arizona Cardinals (32nd), and San Francisco 49ers (1st)
So the Seahawks will end up facing the best and the worst pass defense in the NFL and then another above average unit in Carolina, while the Titans play a bottom five defense twice and a below average one after that.
Right now A.J. Brown has one more touchdown but four less yards than D.K. Metcalf, but that difference in defense could be enough to make a more sizable gap between the two.
If Brown hits 1,000 yards receiving or 10 TDs there is absolutely no way he shouldn’t win the title considering the impact he has had on the Titans playoff run and how he is a product of both explosion and strength.
With 1,000 yards in his sights and with 10 TDs a lofty but potentially doable goal, Brown really is in a position to win this race but the problem is people would have to pay attention to a small market team for him to win. The question is will they?