A.J. Brown has led the Philadelphia Eagles in total targets in each of his three seasons with the team.
However, in the team’s 2025 season opener against the Dallas Cowboys, he wasn’t targeted at all in the first half.
That left many NFL fans and fantasy football managers wondering if Brown was actually playing after he missed time in training camp and the preseason with a hamstring injury.
But Brown was, indeed, on the field. And Jalen Hurts did throw 11 passes, while scrambling out of a few more throwing opportunities.
Still, Hurts didn’t look in Brown’s direction. Instead, Dallas Goedert, DeVonta Smith, Jahan Dotson, Kylen Granson and Saquon Barkley handled the receiving workload while Philadelphia scored touchdowns on each of its three first-half possessions.
How rare was it for Brown not to get a first-half target? It was the first time since Brown’s Week 16 game against the New Orleans Saints in 2019 that he didn’t get one, per NFL reporter Ed Werder. That was when he was a rookie with the Tennessee Titans.
And Brown has only been held without a reception in one game during his career. That came in a 2021 game against the Indianapolis Colts during which he played just eight offensive snaps before suffering a hamstring injury. Even in that limited action, Brown had two targets.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni didn’t scheme up any targets for Brown on Philadelphia’s first drive of the second half. Will he do so when the team begins its second drive after a third-quarter weather delay?
NFL fans and fantasy managers will be eagerly awaiting to see the answer to that question play out.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Eagles’ A.J. Brown goes without a target in first half vs Cowboys
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