The Jokerfication of A.J. Brown

Wherever a running back is getting a massive workload, wherever an offense is passing the ball at a 45 percent clip, wherever there is a defense that makes this sort of hyper-conservative offense possible, there is an NFL wide receiver becoming the Joker. 

That wideouts are divas goes without saying. They have to be, for their opportunity to make plays and on-field production relies on the talent level of their quarterback and the philosophy of their offense. Receivers for generations have tantrumed on the field and off the field when they are not being properly fed the football, or when the targets coming their way are of the shit variety. They will tell anyone who will listen: I am not happy with my role and won’t stop stomping my feet until I am. 

It’s why, as I posted way back in August 2017, wide receivers are so consistently and thoroughly cryptic with their social media posts. While their teammates talk endlessly of team chemistry and dedicating themselves to their teammates and their coaches and rising and grinding until there is no more grinding to do, NFL receivers – and, increasingly, college wideouts – proclaim that the enemy speaks kindly and holds a knife.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Eagles wideout A.J. Brown ripped off my post a couple summers ago – and immediately blocked me on the X platform formerly known as Twitter – when he was haggling for an adjustment to his contract. Though Stefon Diggs remains the king of cryptic social posts, it’s Brown who this week challenged the Cryptic Poster title by changing his Instagram profile picture to Heath Ledger’s Joker. 

It was the final and most predictable step in Brown’s broiling frustration over a lack of targets and glory in the machine-like Eagles offense, which in 2024 consists of two main ingredients: Long Saquon Barkley touchdown runs and Jalen Hurts tush-push goal line touchdowns. Nothing else really happens in this iteration of the Philadelphia offense, and through Week 14, it’s worked wonderfully: The Eagles are seventh in points and eighth in yards. Only five teams have a higher expected points added (EPA) per play than Philly, a nerdy way of saying the Barkley-centric Eagles are among the league’s most efficient offenses. 

Brown, one of the most explosive pass catchers in football with an impossible blend of size, power, and speed, is reportedly not thrilled with quarterback Jalen Hurts and the run-heavy nature of the Eagles offense. Eagles defensive end Brandon Graham said during a Monday radio interview that “personal stuff” between Brown and Hurts – along with Brown’s recent griping about the team’s low-octane passing attack – threatened team chemistry as the Eagles position themselves as Super Bowl favorites. 

“Things,” Graham said, “have changed.” (Graham later walked back these comments, which probably didn’t sit well with hothead coach Nick Sirianni and the team’s brass)

Brown the Joker has a point though. The Eagles this season have 324 pass attempts, almost 200 fewer than the league-leading Cleveland offense. The Eagles are passing the ball at league-low 35 percent rate while leading this season. The problem for Brown is that the Eagles lead a lot. Also, as a side note, Jalen Hurts stinks as a passer, a shortcoming that has been papered over by Barkley’s ultra-efficient, spreadsheet-breaking heroics this season. 

The dearth of Philly drop back volume means Brown has run fewer pass routes than wideout luminaries such as Noah Brown, Jalen Nailor, and Van Jefferson. I did not make up those names; they’re real people. 

Brown, meanwhile, has fewer targets this season than Ray-Ray McCloud and Demario Douglas. Again, these are real NFL players, not names I created with an online randomizer. 

It’s not the first time we’ve seen an elite wideout shift into Joker mode with his team establishing the run like it’s 1974. The aforementioned Diggs, the most cryptic man alive, lost his mind last year when the Bills turned hard toward the run late in the season and had stunning levels of rushing success. Buffalo became the NFL’s run-heaviest offense, Diggs’ targets dwindled to almost nothing, he whined publicly, and the team parted ways with Diggs in the offseason after having so much fun with a run-based offense (That the Bills are back to a pass-first approach tells you all you need to know about that calculus). 

Great receivers, as insecure as any pro athlete, don’t like being out on the action. It doesn’t really matter if their team is successful with a run-first offensive philosophy; these guys weren’t paid to block for some guy getting his 24th carry of the game in the fourth quarter of a comfortable regular season victory. They were paid to make cool plays and get the glory and feel like gods when they roast a secondary and find the end zone paint from a long way away. 

Why so serious, Heath Ledger’s Joker might ask A.J. Brown. Because, Brown might say in a moment of honesty, Saquon is doing all the cool shit out here. 

Follow Denny Carter on BlueSky at @dennycarter.bsky.social.