Why Sirianni singled out Brown's Week 1 performance for whole team

Why Sirianni singled out Brown's Week 1 performance for whole team originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

A.J. Brown has had a lot of great games in an Eagles uniform.

In fact, in three full seasons since joining the Eagles, Brown has had 17 games with over 100 receiving yards.

But there was a reason Nick Sirianni singled out Brown's one-catch performance in Thursday's opener in front of the entire team.

What about that mental toughness by A.J. Brown?" Sirianni said. OK, the ball hasn't come to me in three quarters.' That might be the first time that's ever happened to him in his career as a football player because he's such a good player and you're always trying to find ways to do that.

But he makes a play in a critical moment when his number was called. You look for moments like that to really show and preach the stuff that's important to your core values and your culture. And that was just a great example by one of our captains of, hey, it didn't go exactly the way you wanted it to go or any of us envisioned it going. That's life, that's football. But when called upon and the ball did come your way, you made this huge play."

Brown, 28, didn't get a single target unit the waning moments of the fourth quarter in the Eagles' 24-20 win over the Cowboys in Week 1.

But facing a 2nd-and-11 with 1:51 left in the game, Hurts was able to find Brown for a gain of 8 yards. On the next play (3rd-and-3), Hurts scrambled for 4 yards and the Eagles were able to get into victory formation and escape Week 1 with a win.

After the game, Hurts similarly gave credit to Brown for staying patient and making what Hurts called the most important play of the game" against the Cowboys.

Entering Thursday night, Brown had played in 90 career NFL games and had never played a game without a single target. He was 1:51 away from that on Thursday night.

Even with that one catch, Thursday's game was just the second time in Brown's NFL career with just one target in a game. The other came in Week 18 in 2023 against the Giants, when he played just 12 offensive snaps.

Before every season, Sirianni and the coaching staff have a meeting to clearly define roles for every player on the roster. And, for their stars, they talk about the possibility of a game like we saw in Week 1.

This is something that we constantly talk about in the roles talk is, Yeah, A.J., DeVonta (Smith), Dallas (Goedert), the pass game runs through you, but there are going to be games like this, where you might not get the touches that we want you to get and that we know that you want to get because it can help us win the football game,'" Sirianni said. And in those moments, what are you doing to change the football game without the ball in your hands?"

Sirianni specifically brought up blocks from both Brown and Smith at the third level on Saquon Barkley's second-quarter rushing touchdown.

Despite the lack of targets for Brown, Sirianni on Monday emphasized how efficient the Eagles' offense was in the opener. Jalen Hurts completed 82.6% of his passes and the Eagles didn't turn the ball over once. But Brown saw just one target and DeVonta Smith saw just three.

Getting the ball to Brown a tad more will obviously be an emphasis moving forward.

There's no secret," Sirianni said. We always want to get the ball to 6 and 11 and we're always trying to. We'll do an even better job as coaches trying to make sure that, that happens. And that obviously starts with me."