From the moment A.J. Brown joined the Patriots, the floor for his debut season was 1,000 yards. More realistically, a 1,200-yard season with Drake Maye seemed to be on the docket. Optimistically, Brown could get back to his near-1,500-yard average from the 2022 and ’23 seasons.
Now, of course, those expectations have already been tossed in the garbage after Brown suffered a high ankle sprain in his first game with the Patriots.
Brown was placed on injured reserve, and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Sunday that he’s expected to miss six weeks with the injury, indicating the injury is on the severe side of the spectrum.
“This is a little more serious,” Rapoport said, while noting that surgery is not expected for the 29-year-old Brown.
At 6-foot-1, 226 pounds, Brown is a physical specimen. And at 29 years old, he’s still on the better side of 30. Provided he and the team properly treat his injury without rushing the receiver back to the field before he’s fully healed, it’s possible that he could return and be the same player he’s been for the past seven seasons.
At the same time, there are some high-profile examples of receivers who suffered high ankle sprains and never truly recovered.
Michael Thomas
From the moment he entered the league in 2016 through the 2019 season, Michael Thomas could lay claim to being one of the very best receivers in the NFL. He made three straight Pro Browls from 2017-19 and was First Team All-Pro in ’18 and ’19. He was named Offensive Player of the Year in 2019, when he caught 149 passes for 1,725 yards and nine touchdowns.
He was a monster.
Then, in Week 1 of the 2020 season, Thomas suffered a high ankle sprain. He was 27 years old at the time of the injury, and early reports indicated he’d be able to play through the injury. Despite reporters saying Thomas could suit up in Week 2, he ended up missing six games (in part due to a team suspension for punching a teammate during practice), returning to the field in Week 9.
When he did return, Thomas averaged 6.2 receptions for 70.2 yards per game, and he didn’t score a touchdown in six games. He had been averaging 7.5 receptions for 87.5 yards and 0.5 touchdowns per game in his career prior to the 2020 season.
Thomas couldn’t finish the season due to lingering issues with the ankle, and he was placed on IR in Week 15, missing the end of the regular season and the playoffs.
And then he missed the entire 2021 season.
Thomas opted to undergo surgery in June 2021 to repair his ankle, and he tried to work his way back onto the field by midseason. But a setback in November ended his 2021 campaign before it could begin.
Thomas did start the 2022 season, though he averaged 5.3 receptions for 57 yards per game (with a touchdown in each of his three games played) before suffering a foot injury that ended his season.
Still just 30 years old in 2023, Thomas attempted to play again, this time catching 39 passes for 448 yards and one touchdown in 10 games. But he injured his knee in Week 11 and went back to IR. He never played again.
In Thomas’ first four NFL seasons, he caught 470 passes for 5,512 yards and 32 touchdowns. In his final four NFL seasons, he caught 95 passes for 1,057 yards and four touchdowns. The stark career turnaround began with a high ankle sprain in Week 1 of the 2020 season.
That’s obviously the doomsday example of high ankle sprains for wide receivers, but it’s not the only case of a career going south.
John Brown
John Brown isn’t related to A.J. and wasn’t nearly the same caliber receiver. But he did average just under 50 catches per year for 715 yards and 4.7 touchdowns per season from 2014-19. He topped 1,000 yards in 2015 and 2019.
In 2020, at the age of 30, he suffered an early-season calf injury and a late-season high ankle sprain. He was able to return and be productive, catching 14 passes for 158 yards and a touchdown in his final four games of the season (three were in the playoffs), but he was released in the offseason and would go on to catch just one more pass in his NFL career.
Adam Thielen, Cooper Kupp, Hollywood Brown
This trio of receivers suffered high ankle sprains at vastly different ages. Hollywood Brown was a 22-year-old rookie, Cooper Kupp was 29, and Adam Thielen was 31.
Brown was averaging 4.5 receptions for 76 yards in his first four games before getting hurt, which kept him out for two games. After the injury, he averaged 2.8 receptions for 29 yards per game. He didn’t top 80 yards in a game until the postseason.
One year after leading the league with 1,947 yards, Kupp was on pace to do it again in 2022. But he suffered his injury in Week 10 in 2022, requiring surgery and ending his season.
Kupp was averaging 9 receptions for 102 yards and almost a touchdown per game in eight games prior to suffering the injury. He got a late start to the 2023 season due to a hamstring injury, and he’d end up averaging under 5 receptions for 59 yards in his 13 games played. He’s averaged 50.6 yards per game since the injury. He averaged 80.1 yards per game prior to the high ankle sprain, and he’s averaged 50.6 yards since the high ankle sprain. (Age could certainly be as big of a factor in Kupp’s case.)
Thielen only missed two games with his high ankle sprain in 2021, but he reinjured the ankle in his first game back and went under the knife. He averaged just under 6 receptions for 62 yards and almost a touchdown per game that season prior to the injury. The following season, he caught 4.1 passes for 42.1 yards and 0.4 TDs per game. It wasn’t until the 2023 season that Thielen, at age 34, was able to get back to similar production.
Some players responded just fine to suffering a high ankle sprain. CeeDee Lamb was no worse for the wear after missing three games last season, Jerry Jeudy and Christian Kirk suffered minor dips after high ankle sprains early in their careers, and Terry McLaurin (2020) and Mike Williams (2022) were fine after short absences due to the injury.
Alshon Jeffery*
Though Alshon Jeffery didn’t suffer a high ankle sprain, his story is worth remembering, too. A fellow big-bodied receiver from Eagles history, Jeffery averaged 61 receptions for 816 yards and 7.5 touchdowns in his first two seasons in Philadelphia, while also catching 23 passes for 364 yards and three touchdowns in five playoff games.
He turned 29 before the 2019 season, during which he suffered a calf injury, then a hip injury. Late in the season, he suffered a Lisfranc injury, one that sent him to IR and required surgery.
Jeffery started the following year — his age 30 season — on PUP before catching just six passes for 115 yards and a touchdown in six games.
He was released after the year and never played again.
While Jeffery obviously suffered different injuries, he serves as a cautionary tale to Brown and all receivers to be careful not to push through and play through lower-body injuries that may not be fully healed.
But really, the overall sentiment on Brown in the upcoming months should factor in that he’s dealing with a serious injury, one that’s proven to be challenging to recover from when it’s as severe as Brown’s appears to be. So while the next six games will be a challenge for Drake Maye and Josh McDaniels to navigate without Brown, it’s simply not a given that life will become instantly easier for the offense when Brown does return to play in 2026.
