A.J. Brown needed just one season with Jalen Hurts in a Philadelphia Eagles uniform to break the franchise single-season receiving yards record with 1,496 along with 11 touchdowns. It was a career-high for Brown, but he says he’s just getting started.
Brown took the top off any defense he faced last season, and Hurts would oblige any time he saw his ace receiver with 1-on-1 coverage. And sometimes, double coverage never mattered.
Brown’s speed is a main reason why Hurts and the Eagles don’t mind tossing one up downfield and allowing him to go get it. But Brown said he’s taking his speed to another level in 2023.
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"This offseason, I was hitting 23 miles per hour a couple of times, and that’s what I needed," Brown told Yahoo Sports. "The goal for me is to get in the best shape possible and to run my routes around 18, 19 miles per hour every single time."
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni says he can see the offseason work paying off for Brown.
"It’s hard to say he’s getting quicker, but he is," Sirianni explained. "He’s in and out of his breaks quicker, which helps you create more separation, which is going to help you get more yards after the catch, which is going to help the quarterback throw you the ball more."
Over five days a week this offseason, Brown trained, working on conditioning certain days and route running on the others. Speed and explosiveness on the field were also in the regimen.
His trainer, Joey Guarascio, who worked with him since his days at Ole Miss, focused on high-speed work with Brown, which paid off clearly.
"Giving him small does of high-speed running because it’s like venom – it’s so potent," Guarascio explained to Yahoo Sports. "Just giving him those exposures in limited doses so that we can give him the ability that, OK, if he does catch a deep ball, he can separate."
Tracking Brown’s speed was a necessity this offseason, and Guarascio found that his top speed was 1.6 mph faster, from 22.1 mph to 23.7 mph.
Of course, training with shorts and a T-shirt is different than doing so with pads and a defender in your face. But cornerback James Bradberry felt the added burst from Brown, who said he "ran right by" Bradberry as he was "full, full, full running."
This can only mean good things for the highly potent Eagles offense if Brown has added more speed to his game. Paired with DeVonta Smith, Dallas Goedert and others, Philly figures to be a brutal force for defense to try and stop on a weekly basis.
