Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver AJ Brown is clearly thriving in his NFL career, but he had legitimately bigger ambitions earlier this year.
Brown was one of a handful of NFL players that pitched their services as MLB was enduring a lockout. Brown posted a video of himself taking some swings in the batting cage and tagged the San Diego Padres in the post, the team that actually drafted him in the 18th round of the 2016 MLB Draft. Brown had also alluded to playing both sports professionally in a tweet from January.
Sometimes i think about playing both sports again 🤔@Padres all I need is a workout. I still got 😎 https://t.co/1PRo7ffAWm
— AJ BROWN (@1kalwaysopen_) January 26, 2022
In a new interview, Brown said he was completely serious about playing both sports, and that he even spoke with the Padres about doing so. However, the organization ultimately nixed the plan, as Brown was unwilling to give up his NFL career.
“I was dead serious,” Brown told Martin Frank of the Delaware News Journal. “(The Padres) had reached out to me. They were about to invite me to spring training. They were just waiting on an answer from me.
“They were telling me if I’m (still) going to play football, then I can’t play baseball. I can’t just play around with (baseball). So it kind of killed my chances for the moment.”
Brown did leave the door open to playing baseball once he is done playing football. Unless the 25-year-old wide receiver plans to end his NFL career in his prime, however, that is a long way off.
For now, Brown has little reason to be dissatisfied with his NFL career. The contract issues he had with the Tennessee Titans are a thing of the past, and he has already tallied 224 receiving yards on 15 catches through just two weeks with the Eagles. No use messing with a good thing.
