Fantasy Football Hype for A.J. Brown is Skyrocketing

Should you draft AJ Brown in fantasy this year?

A.J. Brown’s spectacular rookie season has fantasy football players chomping at the bit to draft him in 2020. Brown finished 2019 with 1,051 yards and eight touchdowns off 52 catches. Once Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill took over under-center, Brown’s production starting to popping off the stat-sheet.

Now that he’s entering his second season, Brown is coming off fantasy football draft boards as the No. 11 wide receiver and 32nd overall. AllTitans editor David Boclair and Sports Illustrated’s fantasy analyst Jaime Eisner joined Bill Enright to breakdown whether fantasy players should be willing to draft Brown in the early third round. 

Read the full transcript from the interview below: 

Bill Enright: AJ Brown's spectacular rookie season has fantasy football managers chomping at the bit to draft the second year wide receiver. But just how high should they draft him? Let's find out what David Boclair from AllTitans and Jaime Eisner, our fantasy and gambling analyst here at Sports Illustrated, have to say about the Titans playmaker. David, I'll start with you. How involved is AJ Brown going to be from a passing standpoint, knowing that the Titans are really a run first team? 

David Boclair: Well, a little historical context here, Bill. AJ Brown is one of eight rookie wide receivers in the last decade to top 1000 yards receiving. And the group that he joined is really a pretty salty one. It includes guys like Michael Thomas and Mike Evans and Odell Beckham and Keenan Allen and, you know, names like that. Guys who were not one hit wonders. And it's worth noting that 73% of his receptions, 74% of his yards and 75% of his touchdowns all came after Ryan Tannehill became the Titans starting quarterback. So the Titans might not throw it as much as other teams, but when they do, I think AJ Brown will be the primary target from day one for this offense. 

Bill Enright: Jaime, let me go over to you. Brown is coming off the board as the number 11 wide receiver, 32nd overall, according to the latest ADP data. With that information, are you drafting or passing on AJ Brown? 

Jaime Eisner: I will pass at that price. For me, he's closer to the wide receiver 20. Far from a one hit wonder, but you're asking a lot for him to be up in that territory. Now, to be fair, he was there from week 7 on last season. He was a top ten fantasy wide receiver with Ryan Tannehill. But I think he's going to be more of a 60 catch, 1100 yard, 8 touchdown kind of a player this year, which is still very good, but that's going to put him closer to wide receiver 20 territory. The only small concerns I would have is that now defensive coordinators are going to come into games against the Titans focusing on him in the receiving game when they're not focusing on Derrick Henry, and we kind of saw him disappear a little bit in the postseason last year in those three games; 5 catches for 64 yards on 10 targets. But he's far from a one hit wonder. He's gonna be a really solid WR2. I'm not ready to take him around the top ten at the position yet.

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