Some suggested after Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown was spotted reading a book during the club’s 22-10 wild-card playoff win over the Green Bay Packers this past Sunday that he either wasn’t fully dedicated to the cause or was upset over a lack of targets.
Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni insisted during a Tuesday morning appearance on Philadelphia sports radio station 94WIP that he was “definitely OK” with Brown’s actions.
“The crazy thing is, he’s been reading this book on the sideline for a long time. It just so happened a camera saw it this week,” Sirianni explained, Audacy’s Andrew Porter shared. “Some guys pray in between, some guys meditate in between. A.J. reads in between. Whatever these guys need to do to put their mind in a place where they can play with great detail and great effort, I fully encourage them to do that.”
After Brown caught just one pass on three targets for 10 yards in Sunday’s victory, he told reporters that reading “Inner Excellence” by Jim Murphy on the bench “gives [him] a sense of peace” on gamedays.
“That’s a book that I bring every single game,” Brown said at that time. “…It’s the first time I heard that y’all got me on camera. It’s got a lot of points in there, a lot of mental parts about it. Because for me, the game is mental.”
Supposed locker-room issues allegedly had something to do with the collapse of the 2023 Eagles side that entered Week 13 at 10-1 but then lost six of seven games through the wild-card round of the playoffs. Understandably,
outsiders would at least question why a player would read a book as his team’s defense works to stop an opposing offense, but Sirianni seemed to lash out at those individuals.
“We don’t do any research and we jump to a conclusion of, ‘Oh he must be disgruntled.’ That to me is lazy,” Sirianni added. “Everyone needs to figure out why he’s doing it before they jump to judgment on the man. Because the man, A.J. Brown, is a great, great, great person. The man A.J. Brown is the best receiver — and I’ll say it without hesitation — the best receiver that this city has ever seen…It’s hard for me to watch when people are getting on him without doing the proper research of who the man is and what he’s doing in the first place.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, DraftKings Sportsbook listed the Eagles as six-point favorites for this coming Sunday’s home divisional-round playoff game versus the Los Angeles Rams. Philadelphia has won 13 of its past 14 contests, and everybody involved seems to be on the same page (pun intended) heading into the third weekend of January.
