A.J. Brown at Super Bowl Opening Night on Feb. 6, 2023. Philadelphia Eagles receiver A.J. Brown speaks to the media at the Footprint Center in downtown Phoenix during the NFL’s Super Bowl opening night on Feb. 6, 2023. Nfl Super Bowl Opening Night At Footprint Center

Back in August 2017, NFL writer and podcaster Denny Carter had quite the observation about the way NFL players at different positions tend to tweet. Carter started that with thoughts on NFL wide receivers tweeting cryptically, and then spelled out a typical tweet for each position. That included “WR tweet: the enemy speaks kindly & holds a knife”:

That tweet’s been a good subject of mirth for much of the football world for the last five and a half years. And now, NFL players are starting to fulfill it. On Sunday night, Philadelphia Eagles’ wide receiver A.J. Brown (seen above speaking to media at Super Bowl Opening Night on Feb. 6) not only literally tweeted “the enemy speaks kindly & holds a knife,” he pinned it to his profile:

This led to a lot of discussion of Carter’s original tweet, including jokes that his account was just a burner for Brown:

Meanwhile, Carter himself had one simple reaction:

It’s not particularly clear what caused Brown to tweet “the enemy speaks kindly & holds a knife.” He signed a four-year, $100 million contract extension that runs through the 2026 season last spring, so it doesn’t appear to be about a contract issue. It’s quite possible he just stumbled across Carter’s old tweet some way and decided it would be funny to recreate it. At any rate, this is a better way for Brown to use Twitter than his tweeted-and-deleted rant Friday night claiming humanity hasn’t actually gone to the moon:

Brown said last September he took the Twitter app off his phone because he was tired of receiving praise for how he played. It’s unclear if he’s added it back or is just tweeting from other devices. (He did cause a Twitter stir in November with his comments on the Tennessee Titans, his former team.) But it certainly was something to see him execute the “typical WR tweet.”

[Denny Carter and A.J. Brown on Twitter; photo from Joe Rondone/The Arizona Republic, via USA Today Sports]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.