While his time was short, the original AJ was one of the best WRs to suit up for the Eagles in any given season. And his contributions to our Super Bowl run (including 78 yards and a TD in the Bowl itself) can’t be understated.
That said, the most common complaints people have had with Alshon are:
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Contract - don’t blame him for trying to get paid, blame Howie if you must (and I know many do / did)
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Injuries - injuries suck - but they’re really not the fault of the injured player. Alshon wasn’t known for an injury history and by all accounts he tried to get back to help the team even after a tough Lisfranc injury
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Josina Anderson - the big one - and honestly I always thought this was incredibly blown out of proportion to begin with, magnified by the cult of personality that Wentz had somehow built around himself. An anonymous source complains to Anderson while sideline stain Eskin adds fuel to the fire while Anderson and multiple others denied AJ was the source… all while Wentz actually wasn’t playing well. It wasn’t well after the Santoliquito article where people started to accept that Wentz clearly wasn’t the golden boy everyone thought he was - something surely all the players in the locker room knew and complained about well before.
Obviously Alshon isn’t a Reggie or a Dawkins or a BG. But unlike many of the other key SB players of that time, you rarely hear Alshon in the conversation. Dude should be welcome in every Philly establishment and don’t think that’s really the case today. That needs to change!
Edit: Hey, I’m real heartened to see all the AJ support in here. But let’s not pretend it wasn’t more like this back before we all knew what we know about Wentz: https://www.reddit.com/user/Undergrad26/comments/17sz49y/aj_slander/. And looks like a few people even in this thread today.
As for why now - was just having a discussion last night about best WRs in Eagles history. I put Alshon in my top 10 and immediate got responses of “F that guy”.
We shouldn’t shit on him or Wentz, bc we don’t win in 2017 without either. Aggy too while we’re at it