Sky’s The Limit For Antonio Brown In 2016
I recall saying something very similar at the beginning of the 2015 season: Can Antonio Brown get better?
I had written the article last September, as a means of downplaying expectations for a player who already set the bar high. Very high. However, instead of lowering the proverbial bar, Antonio Brown picked it up and kicked it across the room, shattering expectations in 2015, and raising them significantly for the 2016 season.
After catching 136 passes for 1834 yards and 10 touchdowns, most critics would think any other wide receiver would’ve hit their ceiling. This is not the case for Brown, who amassed those eye-popping numbers without star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, who missed four games. Instead, Michael Vick and Landry Jones were throwing AB the ball, and he still had 136 catches (including 16 grabs against the top-rated Denver Broncos secondary.)
Also intriguing is the combination of Vick/Jones threw passes in exactly half of the Steelers 2015 regular season games, with Vick entering midway through Pittsburgh’s third game of the season, when Ben Roethlisberger was injured in St. Louis. Vick would close out that game, play the entirety of the San Diego game and then exit the Arizona game in similar fashion, making way for Jones. Jones would play the remainder of the game against the Cardinals, statistically Antonio Brown’s worst game of the season, where he would register only 3 catches for 24 yards. In fact, AB would fall off a cliff for several games without Big Ben, with 2 3-reception games (Baltimore and San Diego, both with Vick as the quarterback) and the aforementioned 3 catches against Arizona (with Vick and Jones.)
Brown returned to the century mark against Kansas City, with 6 catches for 124 yards, despite Jones under center. Roethlisberger returned a week later, but Brown could only duplicate his previous week’s efforts (6 catches) before annihilating the Oakland Raiders with 17/284/2.
It’s a wonder, with 7 games of 9 catches or more, if Brown could once again defy the odds in 2016. Here’s a question I had posed before the 2015 season:
While Brown failed to meet his touchdown total, he surpassed his 2014 total of 126 catches with 139. Most fans felt AB could beat 115, but likely fall short of 129. Entering 2016, those same opinions border on Pro Bowler not only reaching the 1,834 yards he gained last season, but potentially eclipsing 2000: something no other wide receiver has done in NFL history.
The prediction isn’t as far-fetched as one might think: Brown’s 2015 numbers are 4th best all-time, behind Calvin Johnson‘s NFL record 1,964 yards (set in 2012) Julio Jones‘ 1,871 (also set in 2015) and only 14 yards behind Jerry Rice‘s 1,848 yards (set in 1995.) Brown also holds the 8th best receiving mark in a given year with his 1,698 yards in 2014.
Brown’s last two seasons of 136 and 129 receptions also ranks 2nd and 4th respectively, behind Marvin Harrison‘s mark of 143 catches in 2002.
To reiterate: with four full games without Ben Roethlisberger.
In other words, the sky is the limit.
Also given Brown’s propensity for setting obscure records (the first NFL player to have 1,000 yards returning and receiving in a season, and first NFL player to record at least 5 catches and 50 receiving yards in 32 consecutive games) one would conclude business might be “boomin'” for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and it’s star wide receiver.
