FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — New England Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown will be sidelined for a minimum of four weeks because he's being placed on injured reserve with a right ankle injury, a person with knowledge of the move told The Associated Press on Friday.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the team hadn't announced Brown's status.
Brown was injured in the second half of New England’s season-opening 13-10 loss at Seattle on Wednesday night.
Another person with knowledge of his injury told the AP that Brown has a high ankle sprain. The person, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Patriots hadn’t announced the severity of Brown’s injury, said an MRI confirmed the diagnosis.
New England’s next game is its home opener on Sept. 20 against Pittsburgh.
Brown left the game early in the third quarter following an incomplete pass from Drake Maye. He was falling to the turf as he tried to make the catch, and Seahawks cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett’s knee made contact with Brown’s ankle, pushing it against the ground.
Brown had three catches for 26 yards before the injury.
His absence presents a challenge for an offense that was counting on him to be Maye's top receiving option after the team didn't bring back Stefon Diggs following a productive 2025 season. The Patriots traded for the three-time Pro Bowler in June.
Brown, 29, was durable during his four seasons in Philadelphia, playing in all 17 regular-season games in 2022 and 2023. That total dropped to 13 during the Eagles’ 2024 Super Bowl title season, and then 15 in 2025.
The Patriots also signed Romeo Doubs in free agency but traded Kayshon Boutte to Houston during training camp. Doubs didn’t have a catch on three targets against the Seahawks and had a costly drop on a second-and-14 in the fourth quarter that would’ve been a first down.
Offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels will now look for more production from Doubs, along with fellow receivers Mack Hollins, DeMario Douglas and Kyle Williams.
“Any injury that you get at this point and time of the season you kind of approach it with an all-hands-on-deck kind of approach,” McDaniels said during an interview Friday on WEEI radio. “We've got a lot of different skill guys that can do a lot of different things. There isn't one person on our roster that can replace anyone like A.J. in the middle of a game or for a stretch of the season. So, we'll band together and we'll figure out what we can do well and then try to get the guys in place to play to their strengths.”
Right tackle Morgan Moses said the offensive mentality doesn't change while Brown is sidelined.
“We don’t blink at all. It’s always been the next-man-up mentality,” he said after Wednesday's loss. “We know in that room we have some dogs. It’s not just one guy. When you have a room like that, full of guys that can make the play, you’re never thinking on one guy. The opportunity for the other guys to step up was there, and they did what they needed to do. A.J. (is) a professional, and he’ll do what he needs to do to get back.”
AP Pro Football Writer Rob Maaddi in Tampa, Florida, contributed to this report.
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New England Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown, center, runs with the ball as Seattle Seahawks safety Rodney Thomas II, left, and cornerback Nehemiah Pritchett, right, move in during the first half of an NFL football game, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Stephen Brashear)
New England Patriots wide receiver A.J. Brown (1) is tended to on the field during the second half of an NFL football game against the Seattle Seahawks, Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a defeat for the Trump administration, a federal court on Friday ruled that the Energy Department exceeded its authority when it forced a Michigan coal-fired power plant to stay open past its scheduled retirement date last year.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright had said the 64-year-old J.H. Campbell Generating Plant was needed to ensure reliable electricity in the region, and he used emergency powers to keep it operating. Environmental groups and three states — Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota — went to court to try to overturn orders keeping the plant online.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit sided with the states and the groups, saying there was no real emergency under the law.
The section of the Federal Power Act that allows emergency orders “is essentially a narrow, last-resort backstop," Appeals Court Judge Cornelia Pillard wrote for a unanimous three-judge panel. Use of emergency authority “is triggered only when there is a need for immediate, essentially last-resort action and the circumstances require action by DOE in particular, as opposed to action by the state or states responsible for resource adequacy," she added.
Reversing the Campbell plant's “long and carefully planned retirement" is "disruptive," Pillard wrote.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said she was relieved the appeals court “threw out DOE’s order that had zero basis in reality.”
Nessel, a Democrat, said her office “has been fighting this unlawful political stunt at every turn, and this ruling proves what we have been saying all along: this administration does not get to invent fake emergencies to bypass the rule of law against the best interests of Michigan residents.”
The Michigan case is one of several legal disputes that have emerged across the country as the Trump administration uses emergency powers to force a half-dozen coal-fired plants to remain open.
Administration officials were undeterred by Friday's court ruling and just hours later Wright announced another emergency order to keep online a coal plant in Centralia, Washington. That plant, operated by TransAlta, had been scheduled to shut down at the end of 2025.
The orders, which also apply to plants in Indiana, Colorado, Florida and Washington state, are raising ratepayer bills and adding air and water pollution that could have been avoided, critics say. An oil and gas plant in Pennsylvania was also ordered to keep its turbines running as a hedge against electricity shortages in the mid-Atlantic grid.
President Donald Trump declared a national energy emergency in a January 2025 executive order, citing demand increases from artificial intelligence and data center growth.
An Energy Department spokesperson said the emergency orders — including at Campbell — “prevented blackouts and likely saved hundreds of lives during peak capacity events this past year,” especially severe winter storms in late January and early February.
At the peak of the storms, coal generation in affected regions increased by 25% compared to the previous year, spokeswoman Emily Matthews said. The Campbell plant provided over 650 megawatts — enough power for hundreds of thousands of homes — every day from Jan. 21 to Feb. 1, she said.
The Energy Department "will continue to protect and defend energy security for all Americans,” she said.
Keeping the Michigan plant open beyond its May 2025 retirement has cost about $259 million so far, according to new financial filings. Those losses will likely be paid by families and businesses in the Midwest, opponents of the order say.
Consumers Energy, which operates the Campbell plant, said it was reviewing the court ruling. In the meantime, the utility will keep the plant operating under terms of a recent DOE order that extends its directive through mid-November, spokesman Brian Wheeler said in a statement.
Ted Kelly, U.S. clean energy director at the Environmental Defense Fund, said the court ruling rejected the Trump administration’s nationwide effort to force “unreliable, aging coal plants that are bleeding money and polluting communities to stay online.”
The Energy Department's “unlawful actions attempted to make families and businesses in the Midwest wastefully pay hundreds of millions of dollars for a coal plant that should have been shut down over a year ago,” Kelly said Friday. The Campbell plant and other aging sites are “incredibly expensive, dangerous to our health and break down frequently,” he said.
Sanjay Narayan, a lawyer for the Sierra Club, called the ruling a victory for families across the Midwest who are “paying to keep this old, expensive and dirty power plant online.”
The Trump administration “has been pulling out all the stops to try to bolster dirty and expensive fossil fuels at public expense. This reckless agenda will not succeed,” Narayan said. "We will continue to fight back against the other illegal extensions across the country.”
Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.
FILE - An aerial image of Consumer Energy's J.H. Campbell Generating Complex is seen in Ottawa County, Mich., Sept. 21, 2024. (Joel Bissell/Kalamazoo Gazette via AP, File)
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright speaks after the signing of an oil agreement between the US and Venezuela at Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Pedro Mattey)
