Brown Denied Offensive Rookie of the Year Honor
A.J. Brown routinely outran defenders in his first NFL season.
Nonetheless, the Tennessee Titans wide receiver finished a distant third in the Associated Press Offensive Rookie of the Year voting.
Brown earned nine votes from the nationwide panel of 50 voters, barely one-third of the total for the winner, Arizona quarterback Kyler Murray who got 26.5. Oakland running back Josh Jacobs was second with 13 votes.
The award was presented Saturday during the NFL Honors program in South Florida, site of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIV.
Murray was the first overall pick in the 2019 NFL Draft. San Francisco defensive lineman Nick Bosa, the second overall pick, was named Defensive Rookie of the Year.
Brown, a second-round pick out of Ole Miss, led all rookies with 1,051 receiving yards (he was the only rookie to reach 1,000) and finished fourth in the NFL – first among all wide receivers – with an average of 8.94 yards after the catch. He was one of two players who averaged better than 20 yards per reception (20.2) and his eight touchdown catches also ranked among the top 10.
His 91-yard touchdown reception at Oakland on Dec. 8 tied for the season’s second-longest pass play. In all, Brown had six games with at least one reception of 50 yards or more. Five times, including his debut, he had 100 yards or more in a game.
“I just want to try to make the things I do good now even better,” Brown said following the season. “And the things I need to work on, [I want to] really just try to handle those things. … Everybody works hard. But if you work hard on the things you need to work hard on, those are the people that are successful.”
