Well, the good news for A.J. Brown, after his home and full game debut for the Patriots, is that it can't get any worse. There's nowhere for him to go but up, starting with Thursday's game against the Bears.
Because, woof, that was bad against the Jets.
I can't recall grading a worse performance by a receiver. They kind of get paid to, at the very least, catch most of the ball thrown their way — especially those making $32 million a year and acquired with a first-round pick.
I charged Brown with five drops in the game; he had a fumble that bounced right to his legs, and had the onside kick clang off his hands/facemask. You could definitely quibble with the pass behind him from Drake Maye, but it's a 7-yard pass, and he should have been down-throttling a little bit earlier to make the throw and catch easier. And, sure, there were some tough/contested catches, but that's why he's paid the big bucks.
There's also the situation with Brown's effort. After going back and studying all of Brown's snaps more closely (video below), I'd grade him a B overall in that department with two big exceptions.
On Rhamondre Stevenson's 12-yard run from nowhere, Brown was immediately defeated on his "block" of safety Minkah Fitzpatrick and didn't stay with the play. If Brown stayed with the play a bit more, he could have picked off linebacker Jamien Sherwood, and Stevenson could have picked up more yardage, if not scored. And on the trick play pass to DeMario Douglas, if Brown ran hard through the entire play, perhaps he would hold the backside safety a bit more, and Douglas would have the opportunity to catch and run, instead of being tackled immediately by a player who had to run across the field to make the play (Maye's pass also could have led Douglas more; he had to stop to catch it).
Watching Brown's film is a unique experience for me, and admittedly a bit of a blind spot. In 25 years, I've never covered one of these No. 1 X receivers. I didn't cover Randy Moss. The closest I came with the Dolphins was a, by that time, washed-up David Boston (talk about an a-hole), and Chris Chambers, who really wasn't a No. 1. In Green Bay, all their receivers — notably Donald Driver, Greg Jennings, James Jones and Jordy Nelson — were interchangeable and blue-collar types. You know the Patriots' receivers in the past 16 years — Wes Welker, Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Brandin Cooks, Brandon Lloyd, Jakobi Meyers, Kayshon Boutte, Kendrick Bourne etc. Didn't have many complaints about those guys. I guess the closest would be Josh Gordon (barely here) and DeVante Parker.
Based on Brown's first full game (and I had some of the same issues with him in his brief work against the Seahawks), he definitely