A.J. Brown

He has played one game all season, 5.6 points in week 1 of 2026, then sat through weeks 2, 3, 4 and 5. He carries no injury designation heading into the next game on the schedule, so the return should be close, and that is the whole decision right now. Our preseason pace was 18.3 points a game over the 14 games we expected for him. The bye lands in week 11 of 2026, so a week 6 or 7 return still leaves a real season to salvage.

The case for holding is the usage. A 30% target share and a 90.5% snap share, both near the top of the league last year, have preceded big jumps for receivers in his spot. The air-yards share, 33.8%, says the deep work runs through him too. We had him WR10 overall before the season, 256 points, and the move from PHI to NE is already baked into that.

The real downside is not just the missed weeks. His efficiency slipped a year ago: yards per target fell from 11.1 in 2024 to 8.3 in 2025, and his target share fell from 34.3% to 29.5%. Stefon Diggs and Hunter Henry took 39% of NE targets between them in 2025. That combination costs a receiver in his spot about 2.7 points a game on the air-yards side alone. He is 29 and entering his eighth year. Hold him through the return, and judge on what the targets look like in weeks 6 through 10 of 2026.