FOXBORO, Mass. — JuJu Smith-Schuster will have a target on his back during Sunday night’s Patriots season opener.
New England’s Week 1 opponent, the Philadelphia Eagles, is coming off a Super Bowl LVII loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Smith-Schuster was involved in the pivotal play of that game, drawing a defensive holding penalty on Eagles cornerback James Bradberry to set up Kansas City’s winning field goal.
The call itself was correct, if a bit ticky-tack given the situation. Even Bradberry acknowledged that. But Smith-Schuster’s actions in the days and weeks that followed won him zero fans inside Philadelphia’s locker room.
First, there was his Valentine’s Day trolling of Bradberry on social media.
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That post prompted a strong response from Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown, who derisively dubbed Smith-Schuster “TikTok boy” and tweeted that he would have been out of the NFL had Patrick Mahomes not “resurrected” his career.
Smith-Schuster’s retort: “Glad you were finally able to get all that off your chest after all these years. Good game bro.”
But Smith-Schuster wasn’t done. A few weeks later, he appeared in a bizarre skit mocking the Bradberry play, Brown’s tweet and the Eagles in general. Unsurprisingly, Philly players weren’t pleased.
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“Bra just asking for it…,” cornerback Darius Slay tweeted. “mf lame af!!!”
Brown also tweeted, then deleted, multiple follow-up messages to Smith-Schuster, including one that featured the line: “Don’t let that ring get you beat tf up.”
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Two weeks after that kerfuffle, Smith-Schuster signed a three-year contract with the Patriots, giving Eagles defenders the earliest possible opportunity to exact their revenge. The 26-year-old should play a starring role in New England’s passing game and could see an even heavier workload if fellow wideout DeVante Parker’s knee injury lingers.
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Is he excited to see all of those Eagles players he spent the offseason trolling?
“Well, I have no choice but to see them, so I can’t really say if I want to not see them,” Smith-Schuster said Thursday. “But that was in the past. Yeah, at the time, that was what I said, what I did, but that’s in the past. I’m here with a whole new team, whole new system, super excited just to go out there and just play and compete against some of these guys.
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“You talk about Slay, you talk about Bradberry, these guys played in the Super Bowl last year. There’s a reason why this defense is really good. So it’s nice for us, our first game, to go out here and put ourself in a challenge where we’re playing against a really good team.”
Smith-Schuster said he never spoke with Bradberry to bury the hatchet after his online barbs.
“No, no,” he said. “I was just chilling, hanging out with my family.”
This was not a rollicking debut summer for Smith-Schuster, on whom the Patriots are counting to be an upgrade over Jakobi Meyers. He was relatively quiet in training camp and caught one pass for 1 yard in his limited preseason action. There also are lingering concerns about the knee injury he suffered in last year’s AFC Championship Game, though he’s been a full practice participant since the start of camp.
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If Smith-Schuster deals with any Week 1 hiccups this Sunday, you can bet he’ll hear about them from any number of eager Philadelphia players.
Featured image via Eric Canha/USA TODAY Sports Images
