A.J. Brown Camp Update — August 23: Seven for Seven Against His Old Team
2026 NFL Season · Sunday, Aug 23
A.J. Brown caught all seven passes thrown his way in Wednesday's joint practice against the Eagles, the team that traded him, and spent the week talking about the learning curve with Drake Maye in the past tense. He did not appear in Saturday's game, which the starters mostly watched.
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A.J. Brown caught every ball thrown to him in Wednesday's joint practice against Philadelphia — seven targets, seven catches — per Nicole Yang at The Boston Globe, and did it against the secondary that knows his game better than any other, because it practiced against him for three years. Evan Lazar at the Patriots' website filed him as the steadiest receiver of the two-day series, winning contested catches throughout. The one ball that got away was a deep shot Quinyon Mitchell broke up, and Brown's accounting of it was all self-charge: "Q got away with a little bit of holding... I've got to finish the play. My right hand didn't get to the ball quick enough," per Yang.
The more interesting quote was about his quarterback. "He's very special. He makes my job a lot easier. Just learning how he sees the game and getting on the same page, there's definitively a learning curve," Brown told Yang — a curve he is describing while catching seven of seven from the man, which is roughly the order you want those two things in. Drake Maye's Wednesday, 15 of 18 with 13 straight completions per Ian Logue at PatsFans.com, ran through nine different receivers, and Brown was the top of that tree.
Saturday's game against these same Eagles was not part of his week: Maye dressed and did not play, nine Patriots sat, and Brown drew no mention in the team's game observations, with the quarterbacking handled by Behren Morton and Tommy DeVito. For a veteran the team already believes in, August games are optional; joint practices are the exam, and he has now passed two of them against two different starting secondaries.
The June read on Brown was a bet on situation over resume — three years of slipping per-target production in Philadelphia against the chance that a motivated alpha with an accurate young passer gets the juice back. Every padded day since has come back on the side of the fit, and this window's evidence came against the defense with the best scouting report on him. What to watch as cutdown to 53 arrives Sunday, August thirtieth: nothing about Brown's roster spot, everything about the room behind him — Romeo Doubs' expanding route tree and the depth receivers' game tape shape who eats after him. We'll check after cut day.
_Data via nflverse._
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