How Tyreek Hill and AJ Brown Explain the NFL

How Tyreek Hill and AJ Brown Explain the NFL

…alright, the title is overselling itself.

These two receivers don’t explain the entire NFL, but they do explain four teams: The Eagles, Dolphins, Chiefs, and Titans.

Those receivers sit first and second on the year in receiving yards and just met on Sunday Night Football.

But more than that, they define the present and immediate future for the 4 franchises that they have been a part of.

The trades before they were part of in the 2022 offseason were like the car scene in Goodfellas between Henry and Tommy, where Tommy is trying to get Henry to come on a double date with him (“prejudiced against Italians! Can you believe that? In this day and age.”).

That scene gave Tarantino and Chase, plus a million other knockoffs, leeway to have characters talking about nonsense while doing important things in movies.

You can draw a line between that scene and the “royale with cheese” conversation in Pulp Fiction.

There was serious culture before that scene and then there was serious culture after it.

It was a turning point.

First, however, the players themselves.

AJ Brown is a bully.

In Tennessee, Brown was mostly a bully after the catch.

He turned into a running back when he caught the ball and ran through people to collect his numbers.

When Brown was traded, 38% of his career yards had come after the catch.

That’s still true of Brown, currently sitting fourth in the NFL in yards after the catch.

But he’s become a ball-winner in Philadelphia as well. He’s a bully at the point of attack, sitting second in the NFL in air yards and first in the NFL in catch rate.

He has become a weapon in contested catch situations.

We saw it against Miami, with the game on the line, Jalen Hurts threw a deep ball to Brown running a stutter go.

Brown was covered on the play and the safety screamed over to him on the throw, making it double coverage at the catch.

Brown boxed out the corner with his thick frame and managed to put out his hands late enough to throw the safety’s timing off.

Eagles win.

For Hill, it’s all about speed. His game hasn’t morphed like Brown’s has after the trade.

He’s the same guy that he’s always been, just with more polish.

A lot of players are fast in the NFL, but nobody is Hill.

Hill has 5 touchdowns on deep targets this season which leads the NFL, with 428 yards on deep receptions (20+ air yards) which also leads the NFL by over 170 yards.

Tyreek Hill makes fast guys look…not fast.

And the Dolphins use speed better than anybody.

This isn’t the Al Davis Raiders drafting Darrius Heyward-Bey seventh overall on the basis of an outrageous workout.

Mike McDaniel has invented and perfected getting his players running starts so when the ball is snapped the defender has no chance of keeping up.

To do this, the Dolphins lead the league in motion before and at the snap motion.

They have used short and orbit motions to give guys like Achane and Mostert the NFL equivalent of the rocket start in Mario Kart.

Doing it with Hill is like shooting him out of a bazooka.

His speed has given the Dolphins a way forward.

They acquired the league’s fastest (and the best) receiver, so they got more fast guys and let their genius coach find ways to give them a running start.

It’s no accident that every team in the league has stolen from the Dolphins and that nobody can do it as well.

Including the Chiefs.

Where the Dolphins bet on a star receiver to help out a limited quarterback, the Chiefs bet on an unlimited quarterback.

It worked.

The Chiefs clearly had no interest in paying Hill the $30m a year that he got from the Dolphins and decided to get some value for him before he left in free agency.

They figured their quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, was the best in the league and he could make up for any shortfall.

This has meant that the Chiefs’ offence has had to change to accommodate the lack of a game-wrecker like Hill.

The Chiefs are still an effective offence but they’re doing it differently.

With Hill in the fold, Mahomes average depth of target (ADOT) was always over 7 yards, peaking in 2018 with an ADOT of 9.1.

His two years without Hill, 2022 and 2023, have been clearly his lowest average depth of target seasons.

This season his ADOT is a career low 6.7 yards.

He is still, of course, a superstar who sits third in the league in EPA, it’s just different.

They matriculate the ball down the field with Kelce, well-timed screens and sprinklings of Mahomes magic.

The real difference is on defence, however.

The Chiefs have the youngest defence on a snap-weighted basis and have surrendered 21 or fewer points in every game so far.

They’re sixth in the lowest EPA per play allowed, they’re now dominant.

Trading Tyreek Hill gave the Chiefs the ammunition to build such a young, dominant defence, even without liquid owners like the Panthers or Broncos have.

The Eagles, like Brown, are bullies.

The Eagles build through the lines and are a north-south, “at you” football team on both sides.

Offensively they are a dominant rushing team, sitting third in the NFL in rush yards and first in yards before contact and can also throw it with the best of them (in large part because of Brown).

They’re like Vince Vaughn’s brother in The Break-Up. They want to dominate by air and land.

Defensively they’re the same.

They’re third in the NFL in sacks and allow the fewest rushing yards in the league.

This is an “at-you” football team that added an “at-you” receiver to make it go.

The Titans, on the other hand, appeared to see the Eagles in the mirror when they traded Brown for picks.

Tennessee also wants to be an “at-you”, physical football team, but they aren’t.

They’re still physical on defence but their star is fading on that side of the ball and their offence can’t make up for it.

Defensively, they’re middle of the pack and offensively, they’re at the bottom.

It’s no accident that 10 months after trading Brown instead of paying him, the GM was out.

They traded away a superstar player without a plan other than running Henry over everyone, and it hasn’t worked.

Now they’re in a rebuild and they’re continuing to hand stars to the Eagles for pennies on the dollar with the recent trade of Kevin Byard for late picks and Terrell Edmunds (poor bastard).

Two trades have both decided and explained the present and immediate future of 4 teams.

The trades are proof that stars matter in the NFL unless you have Patrick Mahomes, in which case nothing matters and you’ll probably win 12 games anyway.