Hollywood Brown Film Room

The JUMBO sized film breakdown of the newest Chief, Hollywood Brown.

The Kansas City Chiefs’ finally got busy in the 2024 Free Agency period - after signing Irv Smith Jr. a few days prior - late last Thursday night. The team had been navigating a tight salary cap situation with L’Jarius Sneed on the Franchise Tag and hadn’t made many waves in terms of new additions in free agency. They had been linked to a handful of wide receivers throughout the process but not much traction had been made through the first four days of free agency.

Then late Thursday night, seemingly out of the blue the announcement comes across that the Kansas City Chiefs and Hollywood Brown had agreed to a one year deal. Ultimately the deal ended up being a 1 year deal worth $7 million dollars with incentives up to $11M and all of Chiefs’ Kingdom rejoiced.

Hollywood Brown had long been linked to the Chiefs’ at various moments, so much so that during his introductory press conference on Monday he admitted to thinking the Chiefs’ would draft him back in 2019. Now, in 2024 the match is finally made and it’s on an exceptional contract from the Chiefs’ perspective. Brown’s base salary is just barely over half of what Gabriel Davis and Darnell Mooney got and the max value still falls short of their base salaries. From his perspective, he gets to go to a great offense, catch passes from Patrick Mahomes, and hit the market again next year as a 27 year old wide receiver to get paid.

Enough with the numbers and feelings though, we’ve been talking about those for days now, let’s dive into some film.

Hollywood Brown Film Review

Nuts and Bolts

Hollywood Brown | 5’9” 166lbs
2023 stats: 14 games, 51 receptions, 574 yards, 4 Touchdowns, 11.3 aDOT

Brown is a smaller wide receiver with elite speed but his production hasn’t always matched up to his high draft profile and physical tools. He’s dealt with injuries throughout his career - most recently a heel injury 2023 - and very inconsistent quarterback play. This isn’t to excuse some inconsistency in his production but it’s worthwhile context when looking at his career.

He is often referred to as a smaller, vertical wide receiver and while factually correct, that sells Brown short. For much of his career he’s played as a pure outside wide receiver and he’s arguably his most efficient as a player vs zone coverage at the intermediate level of the field. This isn’t to say he doesn’t stretch the field - he absolutely does, look at the aDOT - and that’s something he will likely be tasked with doing frequently in Kansas City. He just won’t be a one trick wide receiver like some of the narratives around him may indicate.

Vertical Threat

Starting with the money maker, Brown’s pure speed. He has never been quite as efficient as a vertical receiver as his speed would indicate he could be but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been effective. Since 2019 he is top five in the NFL in deep targets but outside the top 30 in yards on deep target receiving yards. Now, all of that inefficiency isn’t at his feet alone as he’s dealt with really inconsistent quarterback play throughout that time.