A.J. Brown has been named to three Pro Bowls and landed on the AP’s All-Pro second team three times in his first six years in the league. He was third in the rookie of the year voting as a second-round pick of the Titans in 2019, behind Kyler Murray, Josh Jacobs, and one spot ahead of Miles Sanders, and he now owns a Super Bowl championship ring after the Eagles received them just days before the start of the first practice of training camp on Wednesday.
So, the receiver was asked: what’s left for him to accomplish at this stage of his career?
For 15 seconds - and that's not an exaggeration - Brown stared straight ahead. When he answered, it appeared his eyes were wetter than they were before the question.
“Just continue to be the best version of myself,” he finally responded. “I truly feel like I’m the best in the league and uh…I wanna put a stamp on it.”
That said, Brown is very much aware that it’s a team sport, and it’s the team that he puts first.
“I could go deeper but I think that’s what I’m focused on, being the best version of myself and proving it each and every day I am the best,” he said.
What the best in the league looks like to him isn’t statistics or what critics or experts say about him. It’s a feeling, he said, that was given to him by God.
“When I came in the league, He told me I could be the best in the league and I think right now I’m closer than I’ve ever been, closer than I ever been, and I want to put a stamp on it,” he said. “That’s for me. That’s not for whoever else. I don’t care what anyone else says. This is personal for me and that’s what I’m chasing every day.”
Brown said he stays grounded despite the success he’s had, and he’s had plenty. He is on a Pro Football Hall of Fame trajectory with 446 catches for 7,426 yards and 49 touchdowns, and he just turned 28 on the last day of June.
“That’s something that doesn’t really get talked a lot about, is handling success,” he said. “We always talk about battling adversity, but you have to learn to battle success, and that’s one thing I ground myself on each and every day.”
It was on his first game as a pro when his drive to be the league’s best receiver was born. The Titans were playing in Cleveland on Sept. 8, 2019. The Browns receivers that day were Jaris Landry and Odell Beckham.
“During pregame, (they) ran on the field and the crowd went crazy,” said Brown. “There was the feeling, that adrenaline that I got, I said that’s gonna be me one day, and here I am.”
