A.J. Brown has been ruled out for Sunday’s game against the New York Giants. After missing every practice this week dealing with a hamstring injury, the team announced earlier today that the star wide receiver will miss his first game of the season.
On Friday, the star wideout was seen not participating, hanging out on the sidelines in a black hoodie, sweatpants and bright red Nike’s with highlighter yellow shoe laces.
Despite not participating in the practices, Nick Sirianni declined to provide an official status for Brown prior to Friday afternoon’s practice.
“We have to see after this practice,” Sirianni said. “We always want the most time to be able to evaluate before we give you guys [media] any information on that.”
Sirianni did say that Brown is one of the players on the team that could still play on Sunday despite not practicing.
“I definitely think he’s a guy that could.”
The official injury report came out just before 4 p.m. on Friday and Brown was listed as being out along with Adoree’ Jackson (concussion), Cam Jurgens (knee), Azeez Ojulari (hamstring) and Jakorian Bennett (pectoral).
Brandon Graham (non injury related) will not make his season debut either.
Brown dealt with a hamstring injury during training camp that forced him to miss the bulk of the practices during the late summer.
The injury comes at a bit of an inopportune time for the wide receiver who has racked up 201 yards and two touchdowns on 10 catches over the last two games. He is fresh off his 121-yard, two score performance last week at Minnesota while he had 80 yards on six catches against the Giants the week before.
The Eagles offense is not the same when Brown is not on the field, averaging just 15.8 points per in five games with a 2-3 record opposed to averaging 27 points per contest in 61 games, including the playoffs, with an impressive 48-13 record.
Luckily, for the Eagles, they have DeVonta Smith who can easily step in to be the main target for Jalen Hurts and is already on pace to have a career-year. He currently ranks seventh in the NFL in receiving yards and is on pace to finish with nearly 1,220 yards receiving which would set a new-career high which he posted in 2022 with 1,196 yards, finishing ninth in the league.
Last week, Smith racked up 183 yards, setting a new-career high, on nine catches and a touchdown in the 28-22 win over the Vikings. Against the Giants in Week 6, he was held in check to just 49 yards on four catches. It was the third-lowest total this season for Smith ahead of a 29-yard day at Tampa and a quiet 16-yard night in the season-opener against Dallas.
Along with Smith, Hurts will have Dallas Goedert, Jahan Dotson and potentially Darius Cooper, (shoulder, questionable) who shined in the preseason back after the team opened up his practice window this week.
It is also notable that the Giants will be without their top cornerback Paulson Adebo (knee) who has not practiced this week along with safety Jevon Holland (knee) is listed as doubtful.
The Eagles will look to avoid being swept by the Giants in the regular season for the first time since 2007.
