After the Eagles beat the Buccaneers, A.J. Brown took to Twitter to share some post-game thoughts on Sunday. The cryptic posts have ignited a firestorm among fans and national media, and likely did exactly what the WR had hoped. He got everyone’s attention, including head coach Nick Sirianni.
Sirianni spoke to reporters on Monday and was asked about Brown’s social media posts, and specifically whether he got a sense of whether the WR wanted to still be with the team.
“Yeah, yeah [he wants to be here].
Obviously, A.J. is very important to this football team. I know he wants to contribute. I know he wants to contribute, and do the things that he’s capable of doing.
Again, he wants to contribute into these wins. And he’s had a couple games where he hasn’t been able to, for different reasons of why we haven’t in these games. So, I question nothing about his desire to play great football, desire of being a good teammate, desire to be here.”
The head coach wouldn’t say when or how he talked to Brown about the situation, only addressing it to say that he would never divulge private conversations — between himself and Brown, or any other player on the team.
Sirianni also spoke in a more general sense about how to approach these types of situations, and he pointed to having open and honest conversations. It starts with the relationship they build with each other before they face adversity, and then being honest about things when they hit a rough spot.
“Again, I know [A.J. Brown] wants to contribute to what we’re doing out there. Especially when you’re having the second half that we had. And so again, like I said, never question the teammate he is, never question the effort that he plays with, the player that he is, and the person that he is.”
Many have suggested the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and Brown could be featured a lot more in Week 5 against the Broncos. Either way, the Eagles offense needs to find ways to be much more effective in both the pass and run game, and consistently through four quarters.
