Tennessee Titans: A.J. Brown, Second year superstar

Tennessee had arguably their most explosive offense in franchise history and their reason to believe this was only the beginning.

For whatever reason, there is a lot of skepticism regarding the Titans’ 2020 potential coming from the national media. And at times, you can’t even blame them when there are people within this own fan-base that choose to trash this team any chance they get.

Those fans have clearly been scarred by failed expectations in the past, however, those same skeptics need to understand that the only thing that correlates those underachieving teams in the past to this 2020 Tennessee Titans squad, is the logo on the helmet.

After having one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL last season, the Titans return 10/11 starters on offense. The sole loss was to Jack Conklin who earned the right to maximize his value down in Cleveland. The Titans instead opted to run it back with fan favorite, Dennis Kelly for a much more cap-friendly price tag.

The former Purdue Boilermaker has often been the preferred choice at the Right Tackle position within this fan-base over the last couple of years prior to Conklin resurrecting his career in 2019. Unfortunately only time will tell if Kelly will be ready to take that next step in his career from great swing tackle, to legitimate Right Tackle on a full-time basis.

Coming off a season in which the Titans were two quarters away from the Super Bowl, Titans GM Jon Robinson didn’t leave that to chance with the selection of the massive Right Tackle from the University of Georgia, Isaiah Wilson in the first round.

The talented rookie will undoubtedly provide competition for the starting Right tackle position in 2020. Drafting Wilson also ensures that Tennessee continues to have first round bookend tackles for the foreseeable future, while the re-signing of Dennis Kelly provides the security of not forcing the Georgia product into the lineup before he is truly ready. J-Rob showed a commitment to not let the inevitable loss of Conklin, cripple the most explosive Titans offense in recent memory by having two viable and logical replacements on deck going into the new season.

Regardless of which talented player is starting come the fall, this offense is undoubtedly ready to explode in 2020 now that Ryan Tannehill will get an entire training camp knowing he is the guy and won’t be forced to wait seven weeks in order to come to dig the team out of a 2-4 hole.

Titans’ superstar running back Derrick Henry will also have a legitimate passing threat right out the gate and could be in for his most monstrous season yet. Something that is a scary thought in its own right.

That statement definitely is not a reach either. Since the man known as ‘El Tractorcito’ had his breakout game against the Jacksonville Jaguars back in November 2018, the former Heisman winner has rushed for 2,571 yards and 25 rushing touchdowns in his last 22 games. An absolutely ridiculous total considering those are solely his ground numbers.

However, there is one player on this Titans offense that I think is going to elevate his game from being talked about as a “very good rookie”, to becoming an indisputable superstar in his sophomore season.

”Heart bigger than my body”

Last season A.J. Brown took the league by storm from his very first NFL game after reaching the 100-yard threshold in his pro-debut and looked like a man amongst boys for much of that game.

The rest of his rookie year was much of the same, especially once he got settled in with the man he refers to as “sniper” following the mid-season Quarterback change. His presence provided an immediate impact to an often-stagnant passing attack and gave this fan-base a shot of life that this franchise hasn’t seen in many years (if ever).

Standing at 6-foot-1 and tipping the scales at a mammoth 226 pounds, Brown is a physical specimen who is a nightmare for defensive backs to cover. For whatever reason, A.J. was relatively overlooked coming into the league despite having fantastic college tape at his disposal. Many of the scouts felt that he wasn’t “athletic enough” to survive at the next level which led to him falling to Tennessee with the 51st pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Despite that silly narrative, The Titans’ talented wideout was the only rookie receiver to score a grade over 92 on the production score, despite coming in with an absurdly athletic score of 73.

Unfortunately for Next Gen Stats, they don’t have anything to measure someone’s heart and dedication to greatness because that is something that Brown would undoubtedly score at least a 99 on. The rookie receiver states that his ”heart is bigger than my body” which should be alarming for opposing defensive backs considering the fact that the physical specimen known as A.J. Brown is only getting started.

YAC Monster

Arguably what makes the Starkville, Mississippi native more unique than the usual receiver prospect is his Yards after catch (YAC) ability once the ball is in his hands.

Ever since his days at Ole Miss, A.J. Brown has had a Derrick Henry like mindset where he genuinely doesn’t believe you can get him down once he gets rolling. That wolf mentality has been no different once he got to the big league and he has the production and the numbers to back it up:

The Ole Miss product undoubtedly had one of the best rookie receiving seasons in recent history and it gets overlooked simply because of the market he plays in. Brown was not only the sole rookie receiver to eclipse the 1,000-yard mark, he only needed 84 targets to do so which is the fewest for ANY 1,000-yard receiver since PFF began keeping track back in 2006.

Brown ultimately finished his rookie campaign with 1,051 yards and eight touchdowns on just 52 catches. He also contributed another touchdown and 60 yards through the ground on three carries. In fact, the inevitable superstar wideout is the only rookie in the Super Bowl era to eclipse 1,000 yards on 20+ yards per reception (20.21 YPR).

As a rookie, A.J. was also the only receiver in the league to eclipse over nine yards after the catch, per reception, and finished third among all receivers with a grade of nearly 90 on the season, according to PFF. Now that Brown will go into his second season as the unquestioned No.1 receiver, the thought of what he will do with the inevitable influx of targets that will come his way should keep all opposing defenses up at night whenever they see Tennessee on the schedule.

Conclusion

For whatever reason, I don’t think a lot of people within this fan-base understand the type of explosion we could potentially see out of the second year wideout now that he has his feet wet in the league. Brown has the potential to take an already explosive offense to a whole other level if he continues on the same trajectory that he is currently on.

I think plenty of Titans fans were rubbed the wrong way when the NFL chose to give Kyler Murray the offensive rookie of the year award. Nothing against Kyler as he deserved the award in his own right, but what Titans fans saw every weekend from September-January was not a fluke. The rookie out of Ole Miss may never be able to retrieve another rookie of the year award, but there is no reason why anyone should doubt that Arthur Juan Brown can eventually become an offensive player of the year candidate on a consistent basis going forward.

The question shouldn’t be can he be one of the best receivers to put on a Titans uniform, that will become obvious maybe as soon as this season. Only five Titans/Oilers wide receivers in total have eclipsed one thousand yards since the team moved to Tennessee and there have only been nine 1000-yard seasons by a wide receiver and/or tight end since the relocation back in 1997. At the age of 22, Brown has already shown that he has the potential to change that history and re-write the narrative about Titans receivers.

If the Titans’ passing attack comes to life as expected in order to complement an already consistently strong ground game, we will see one of the most explosive offenses in the NFL residing in Nashville, Tennessee for the second straight year, and likely for the foreseeable future.