NASHVILLE, Tenn. – While A.J. Brown is available to practice in the Titans’ minicamp starting Tuesday and will do some work, the team will hold him out of team periods to be cautious.
Brown pulled up with an apparent hamstring issue early in an OTA session last Tuesday. Then offered an optimistic tweet a bit later.
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— AJ Brown (@Brown1arthur) June 4, 2019
The Titans do not have a great history with receivers and offseason hamstrings and clearly want to ensure Brown will be completely fit when the team reassembles for training camp in late July. [Unlocked]
His early work has been encouraging, but so has the early work of a lot of Titans receivers over the years. There is reason for optimism with him and he does appear to be different with a nice combination of size and movement skills.
But with no contact and in shorts and helmets, OTAs and summer work are made for receivers to shine and the Titans have traditionally had guys do so and then fail to pan out as expected.
Brown is a second-round draft pick who can be part of transforming a longstanding problem position. But I’ll advise again against getting overly excited based on what you’ve seen and heard so far. It’s always, always, always best to be cautious when it comes to getting excited about a Tennessee receiver based on a history that extends all the way back to their move from Houston and includes the real development of just two players the team brought in from college – Derrick Mason, drafted when the team was still in Houston, and Drew Bennett, an undrafted free agent.
Corey Davis is on a promising path, but his two seasons so far are nowhere near what you’d expect in production from their No. 5 pick in the 2017 draft. He and Brown have a chance, along with free-agent addition Adam Humphries, to transform the group.
But it’s like the Titans against the Colts, who’ve beaten Tennessee 11 consecutive times when Andrew Luck has played against them – we’d all be wise to wait until it happens to believe it will happen.
As for Brown and the cautious approach now: The Titans are not going to win anything in three days of unpadded work right now, but they can lose something.
It’s the correct approach.
List courtesy DraftHistory.com.