Could the Philadelphia Eagles have two 1,000-yard receivers in 2022?

Trivia time: Who was the last wide receiver to crack 1,000 yards in the regular season for the Philadelphia Eagles?

Alshon Jeffery? Nope, he topped out at 846. Nelson Agholor? Nice try, but no; he cracked 700 yards twice but never cleared 800, let alone 1,000. Jordan Matthews? So close, but no; J Matt came three yards short of that mark in 2015, which, as you can probably guess, was the high-water mark of his career.

Tough one, right? *sigh* such is the existence of a team that hasn’t exactly been flush with wide receiver talent this century.

No, the answer to this particular question is none other than Jeremy Maclin, who burst through the thousand-yard glass ceiling on his way to a 1,318-yard season in 2014 on his way to a massive five-year, $55 million extension.

Depressing? You bet but guess what? 2022 is a new dawn for the Philadelphia Eagles. Not only may we finally see one 1,000-yard receiver, 2022 might mark the first time Philly could claim two 1,000-yard receivers, a feat they haven’t accomplished since, well, since never, according to Statmuse.

DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown are both going to eat for the Philadelphia Eagles.

DeVonta Smith and A.J. Brown are both incredibly good wide receivers. They can each log snaps across multiple positions, beat opposing defenders in multiple ways, and even serve as the top option in a premier passing NFL offense.

Could the duo ‘cancel each other out’ and result in down years for both players? Sure, teams could key in on both and open up a ton of targets for players like Zach Pascal, Quez Watkins, and Dallas Goedert, or just one could be the beneficiary of the big time plays, with the other averaging a far lower yards-per-catch than they are used to.

But then again, what if higher waters raise all ships? What if having Smith on one side of the formation and Brown on the other opens up mismatches on seemingly every snap and it just comes down to Jalen Hurts hitting the right open man like a double-teamed point guard driving to the basket.

It makes sense, right? In 2021, opposing defensive coordinators could basically just key in on Smith and Goedert and force the Eagles to beat them with Quez Watkins, Jalen Reagor, and Greg Ward. That becomes a whole lot harder to do when Brown – or Smith – is the team’s WR2, regardless of whether the fourth pass catcher on the field is a third wide receiver like Watkins, a second tight end like Grant Calcaterra, or even a ‘Pony set’ with Kenneth Gainwell and Miles Sanders sharing the offensive backfield with Hurts.

After fielding an offense that wasn’t quite one-dimensional but was darn close, the Eagles have options in 2022.

In 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles threw the ball 494 times. That mark ranked dead last among the NFL’s 32 teams and was a whopping 237 fewer attempts than the league-leading Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who threw the ball 731 times. If the team wants to take a step forward in 2022, that has to change. Fortunately, the addition of A.J. Brown is the perfect remedy to Nick Sirianni’s pass-calling woes and should elevate his offense to heights we haven’t seen since the golden years of the Doug Pederson era.