Brown didn't realize how good he had it in Philadelphia.
When the Philadelphia Eagles decided to move on from star wide receiver A.J. Brown, there were a lot of questions about how the offense was going to look from top to bottom.
For one, while Brown showed his frustration when he wasn't getting the football, he was still the focal point of the offense in the passing game.
We can go as far as to say that guys like DeVonta Smith were also top options, but the reality is that Brown was the guy the Eagles were looking to throw the football to more often than not.
That created problems Philadelphia eventually had to address, though it showed us something in Week 1 with its win over the Washington Commanders.
Instead of targeting Smith and hoping the offense could figure things out, as it did in years past, the Eagles took a much better approach. They passed to multiple players and even did something they did only once during Brown's tenure.
“Week 1 offered the first indication of the Eagles’ target distribution without A.J. Brown. It was spread more evenly than I anticipated, with four players getting between four and six targets (DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert, Dontayvion Wicks, and Makai Lemon).
“Consider this: In the past two seasons, the Eagles had only one game Brown played where four players were targeted at least four times. Sirianni was always honest that the passing game went through Brown, Smith and Goedert. Everyone else needed to be a complementary piece. Jahan Dotson, the Eagles’ No. 3 receiver during the past two seasons, was never targeted four times in a game Brown played,” Zach Berman of The Athletic wrote.
It's almost crazy to see stats like this and realize Brown was frustrated during his time in Philadelphia by the lack of targets, but that isn't Philadelphia's problem anymore.
The Eagles can only hope that not having to deal with Brown's comments will eventually pay off. Sunday ended in a win, but I wouldn't say that Philadelphia didn't miss Brown.
The offense got some things going, but I still believe he's one of the most talented players in this league.
