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CJ26
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link: http://espn.go.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/14334317/antonio-brown-building-case-nfl-best-receiver
The NFL receiver every general manager covets stands at least 6-foot-1, weighs more than 200 pounds and flies past cornerbacks to snatch the football in his huge hands. He looks like Calvin Johnson, Dez Bryant, Julio Jones, A.J. Green or Demaryius Thomas.
The receiver some veteran cornerbacks call the toughest to cover looks nothing like these prototypical wideouts. The Pittsburgh Steelers' Antonio Brown, No. 1 in Pro Football Focus grading this season, stands 5-foot-10 and weighs 181 pounds. The list of 21 receivers selected ahead of him in the 2010 draft featured Taylor Price, Mardy Gilyard, Kerry Meier, Carlton Mitchell and Dezmon Briscoe.
Brown is keeping different company these days, having forced his way into the conversation for best receiver in the game.
"By far I think Antonio Brown is the No. 1 receiver," a veteran cornerback said when asked to rank the NFL's best.
There is no consensus on the subject now that Megatron is 30 years old and coming off a couple of injury-affected seasons. GMs would to this day have a hard time choosing Brown against his more physically imposing peers, but they could be wrong for reasons not widely known.
Why cornerbacks are wary
Just as teams aren't rushing out to draft short quarterbacks after Russell Wilson defied the odds, they won't be looking for No. 1 receivers cast in Brown's physical mold. Size matters, especially in the red zone. But when I polled cornerbacks around the league while touring training camps in August, some were adamant that Brown was tougher to cover than an A.J. Green or Dez Bryant type.
"Antonio might not have the size, but to me, he is the most versatile receiver," one veteran corner said. "You don't know what you are going to get with him because he can do it all."
The veteran corner who called Brown "by far" the game's best receiver hit on similar themes.
"He is a tough guy, he plays like a big guy and he separates," this corner said. "He runs all types of routes -- from the inside, from the outside. The big guys, they put them outside and they are good because of their size. Antonio Brown plays like he is big, and then he can run all the routes. He can make you miss and get loose and get open. Those are the toughest guys to cover.
"The big guys are easier when you are playing off and they run intermediate routes. You can read that a little bit. Brent Grimes is a smaller corner, but he wins his share with Calvin Johnson and those kinds of guys because they only run so many routes in the field. Now, in the red zone, they are tough to cover because they are so big."
A couple of signature plays
The screenshot below shows Brown working one of his signature routes for a 54-yard touchdown against the Baltimore Ravens in Week 9 last season. As offensive coordinator Todd Haley explained, Brown was running a bench (or deep out) route that should be borderline unwinnable when the defense plays man-to-man coverage underneath with a safety over the top and no flare control, defined as a running back releasing to affect the underneath coverage.
Brown caught this ball with his back to the sideline after unleashing a reverse pivot on cornerback Jimmy Smith, who went tumbling past. Brown then stiff-armed safety Will Hill to the ground while cutting across the field and outrunning defenders to the end zone.
"When I got here, I knew he was talented, but I just saw the smaller body and I didn't understand how strong he was," Haley said. "His core strength, pound-for-pound, he has to be the strongest guy on the team or close to it, which makes up for some of that size. It gives him the run after catch."
NFL, CBS
Ben Roethlisberger and Steelers GM Kevin Colbert pointed to Brown's footwork along the sideline as extraordinary, to the point that coaches take seriously his pleas to issue replay challenges if an official rules Brown was out of bounds. Both recalled a Week 15 game against Atlanta last season when Brown was certain he'd gotten both feet inbounds following a long reception to the 1-yard line with 31 seconds left in the first half. A booth-initiated replay proved Brown correct.
"I don't think there is anybody better on a sideline," Roethlisberger said. "Literally every catch on the sideline, you assume he is inbounds. It is that good. ... He doesn't dive. I've never seen him dive for a pass in all the years I've been playing with him. He will run through passes. He doesn't dive on the sideline. He catches it and taps his toes. His footwork on the sideline is unbelievable."
NFL, CBS
X factor cannot be coached
When I visited Steelers training camp, it was a little puzzling at first to see Roethlisberger and Brown react angrily after connecting on a 15-yard pass through the middle. Fans in attendance cheered after Brown made a leaping grab on the play, but Roethlisberger was mad at himself for failing to lead Brown perfectly. Brown took the blame for being a step short. Both thought this play should have produced a longer gain, perhaps even a touchdown.
Brown, so competitive that Haley called him "ready to fight" when a defensive back holds him in practice, is apparently more maniacal in his preparation off the field, where coaches cannot place boundaries.
"I've never seen any player at any position work as hard as this guy year-round," Haley said. "This guy is 24-7 and I hear it from people like former players of mine that will be down in Miami and say, 'I was trying to workout with A.B. and couldn't hang.' Because he is calling them and saying, 'Hey, we are swimming at 6 a.m. for three hours and then hey, we are going to do this.' Guys fall out after a day."
Opposing coaches see it transferring to the field, and not just in the numbers (Brown caught 17 passes for 284 yards against Oakland in Week 9).
"He has so much confidence and it just flows out of every pore in his skin," an AFC North coach said. "You know guys who just have whatever the juice is to make the play? Some guys can only get that when it's playoff time or fourth quarter or overtime or the last drive of the game. He has it every single play. I'm not sure how to describe whatever that level of 'get s--- done' is, but he has it all the time. He has great instincts, speed, change of direction and he is trying to rip your throat out all the time."
Another opposing coach from inside the division was putting check marks on a notepad next to top receivers' names when he realized he'd overlooked Brown's name by accident.
"Oh, my God," this coach said. "I think he is unbelievable. He plays bigger than what he is. He is fast, he is sudden, he is quick, he is strong, he makes acrobatic plays. He is one of the best of the league. He will kick your ass. He tried to bite our neck off. He is not just trying to win. He is trying to kill you. He is an assassin. A small assassin is what he is."
A GM who wasn't sure how high he'd rank Brown against the game's best big receivers said he thought toughness could be an underrated attribute working in his favor.
"You'd love to have Antonio Brown, but would you take him over A.J. Green?" this GM asked. "I'd have to study that. You look at A.J. Green, he has all the tools. How tough is he? I do not think he played very good at the end of last year because he was banged up. That is a huge part of it because it is not necessarily how they play when they are feeling great. It's how they play when they are not feeling great. Are they able to get through? I think Antonio Brown has that."
Why GMs aren't so sure
A defensive coordinator who called Brown as good as any receiver in the game said he thought top receivers with prototypical size faced tougher coverage schemes. "When we would play Calvin, every coverage we had was tilted toward him," this coordinator said. "Everything we did was based off Calvin. I don't think people do that [with Brown] and I think that is why he kills them. Listen, you'd better shift your coverage to that little s---. He is something."
That is easier said than done when facing the Steelers given the team's array of weaponry, especially when multidimensional running back Le'Veon Bell is healthy. "[Brown] is a b---- [to cover], but I don't know," one GM said. "It doesn't mean I do not like him. If I were drafting them, I would not take him above those other guys. A lot of his stuff come from Ben [Roethlisberger] being Ben, too. He is probably one of the better route runners, but he lacks the elite speed some of those other guys have." Another GM who likewise did not place Brown among his top five receivers said size matters too much for Brown to rank at the very top.
"Ben Roethlisberger is great, obviously, so it is maybe easier for them, but if you were to put Antonio with a midtier quarterback, then I think you are going to see a sharp decline in his production because there would be less margin for error for the quarterback when it comes to accuracy," this GM said.
The GM made this comment before Brown's production fell markedly during a stretch of games when injuries sidelined Roethlisberger this season. These things happen. Denver has one touchdown and five interceptions to show for the 96 passes a struggling Peyton Manning threw Demaryius Thomas' way.
An offensive coordinator who ranked Brown among the very best found one other nit to pick.
"If you are one-on-one, if you back-shoulder it, Antonio Brown is going to win every time, but he doesn't have that go-up-and-take-it-off-somebody ability," this coordinator said. "Odell Beckham is the one small guy who plays big that way. That is the one thing missing from Antonio."
The numbers say Brown is No. 1 by a landslide
Bill Belichick did Brown's game justice before his New England Patriots faced the Steelers in the opener. He called Brown quick enough to get separation, dangerous enough after the catch to exploit soft coverage and sure-handed enough to catch the ball away from his body. He said he was polished enough to make different routes look the same and smart enough to run different routes against different coverages from different places in the formation.
"And on top of that, he's got a quarterback that can get him the ball in any of those situations very accurately," Belichick said. "Some receivers are open, but they don't get the ball. This guy is open and they get him the ball."
There is no debating that. Brown is leading the field by 51 receptions and nearly 500 yards since the start of the 2013 season. He has 332 receptions in that 44-game span. Demaryius Thomas is second with 281. Brown leads the NFL in receiving yardage with 4,507 during that span. Thomas is second with 4,021. No one else has more than 3,534. Thomas also has 28 receiving touchdowns, tied for third behind Bryant (31) and Brandon Marshall (30).
GMs can say what they want and they might be right, but Brown has established himself as the NFL's most productive receiver, at least. There is no disputing that.
