AJ Brown Admitting He's 'Pushing Through' His Ankle Injury is Less Than Ideal
Michael Owens. Getty Images.I'm not exactly dispensing any great wisdom you can't get from any sports radio caller high on Gummies behind the wheel when I point out things haven't gone as planned with the Patriots wide receiver corps. The decision to keep six wideouts on the roster turned out to be a godsend, since they've all been healthy for just over 30 minutes of the season, when AJ Brown down in the 3rd quarter of Week 1. Followed a couple of weeks later by Mack Hollins. Then Romeo Doubs a couple of games back. And now they go to Miami with just four receivers for the second straight week.
Note I didn't use the term "healthy receivers" because Brown was listed as Limited in the final injury report of the week:
Which isn't even the worst of it:
Source - Due to an ankle injury suffered in Week 1 that cost him a month, Brown has played just 132 of New England's 462 total offensive snaps. And in his first two games back from said injury, he's been rusty, if not nonexistent.
Brown admitted to Boston Sports Journal's Mike Giardi that he's still not where he'd like to be with the ankle ailment but knows he has little choice but to push through the discomfort.
“Yeah, sometimes, you know, I see it, and sometimes, I'm pushing through,” he said Wednesday. “But none of that stuff even matters. I'm out here, so I'm going.”
Brown was listed as a limited participant in Wednesday's practice with ankle and knee injuries.
Due to injuries to Mack Hollins and Romeo Doubs, New England has needed Brown more than it likely anticipated after activating him off injured reserve. He played 76.5 percent of snaps in his first contest back … and saw even more action in the Patriots' Thursday night loss to the Bears, playing 90.7 percent of their total snaps on a short week.
It's not the set of challenges anybody anticipated for Brown when he arrived via a summer blockbuster trade.
While that last sentence hasn't locked down the Understatement of the Year Award just yet, but it's undoubtedly going to get nominated. And the part about Brown's knee getting tossed on the mountain range of injuries this team is already dealing with makes it all the more troubling. Especially when they're asking him to carry the load by being out there on practically every down.
Because the results through roughly half the season (I miss being able to do the math of half seasons) are not what anyone was looking for when the Pats let Stefon Diggs walk and gave up a 1st rounder for Brown. In his three games, among all WRs he's:
--89th in reception %, at 45.0
--6th in drop %, with 18.2
--91st in Pro Football Focus receiving grade, at 54.4
--87th in passer rating when targeted, with 60.7.
To put that last metric in perspective, it means that every time Drake Maye has thrown it toward Brown, he's been statistically equal to Daniel Jones in a Week 6 loss to Tennessee when he posted this line:
22-for-42, 54.2%, 264 yards, 6.4 YPA 1 TD, 2 INTs
Note that Jones is currently 33rd in passer rating among all qualifying QBs. Meaning he's statistically not good enough to be a starter in the league.
None of which should be taken as criticism of Brown. Just grave concern about his physical condition. He's playing hurt right now. He probably came back too soon. But with the Patriots facing a tough part of the schedule, he nutted up, answered the call, and is gutting it out when a lesser player would be leaving it to others to pick up the slack caused by the losses of Hollins and Doubs. This is all very much to his credit.
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But it's not what we bargained for. The fact this team is 4-3 and Maye is playing as well as he is should be seen as a minor miracle. All of which means the Dolphins could not be coming along at a better time:
In Brown's third game last year, after a slow start to the season, he went off on the Rams for 6 catches and 109 yards. Now would be the perfect time for him to have a get-back game, and start becoming the vessel into which we poured all our offseason hopes and dreams. So we can look back on September and October and have a good laugh: