5 reasons the Tennessee Titans will go from contenders to champions
Arthur Juan Brown
A.J. Brown was a bonafide star by the time the Titans turned their pads in at seasons end. The talented rookie receiver took the league by storm from his very first NFL game after reaching the 100-yard threshold in his 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 following the mid-season Quarterback change to Ryan Tannehill. His presence provided an immediate impact to an often lackluster 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 regardless of the scheme.
For whatever reason, A.J. was relatively overlooked coming into the league despite being a perennial All-American.
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 an alpha-male 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. If A.J. played in a market like Dallas, he would rightfully be getting talked about as the next big thing.
Instead, he constantly gets overlooked and is a footnote when discussing the best receivers in the game according to the national media. Heck, some don’t even see him the best receiver in his own draft class which is blasphemous in its own right.
Brown was not only the sole rookie receiver to eclipse the 1,000-yard mark, he only needed 84 targets and 52 catches to do so which is the fewest for ANY 1,000-yard receiver since PFF began keeping track back in 2006.
https://twitter.com/nflnetwork/status/1264904057409306624
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 as they try to stop this explosive offense.
Adding elite cornerstone talents in Simmons and Brown to both sides of the ball will undoubtedly help this Titans team going forward as they try and reach heights that this franchise has never seen.