A. J. Green

Adriel Jeremiah Green (born July 31, 1988) is an American former football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for twelve seasons, primarily with the Cincinnati Bengals.

He played college football for the Georgia Bulldogs, earning All-American honors.

Green earned All-State honors four times and was the only junior nominated to the 2006 USA Today All-American first-team following 75 receptions for 1,422 yards and 16 touchdowns during his sophomore season.

Green was also selected as a member of the Rivals.com Junior All-America team based on those stats.

As a freshman, he had 57 receptions for 1,217 yards and eight touchdowns.

As a sophomore, he had 60 catches for 1,203 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Green's 5,373 career receiving yards rank second in the all-time career receiving records of the National Federation of High Schools.

His 279 career receptions rank fourth.

In June 2006, Green was profiled by Sports Illustrated as part of its "Where Will They Be?"

stories documenting athletes with the potential of becoming a future great, alongside Peter Uihlein, John Tavares, Tyreke Evans, Elena Delle Donne, and others.

Green was also on the Summerville High high school basketball team that claimed the 2007–2008 South Carolina state championship in a championship game against Spartanburg (S.C.) High.

The game was played in memory of their fallen assistant coach, Captain Louis Mulkey of the Charleston Fire Department in South Carolina, who died responding to a fire with eight other firefighters on June 18, 2007.

He was widely considered to be one of the top national football prospects of the Class of 2008 and was listed #1 by Sports Illustrated.

Rivals.com ranked Green as their No. 9 prospect for the high school class of 2008, while Scout.com named Green their No. 10 prospect nationally.

He participated in the Under Armour All-America Game.

Green verbally committed to attend the University of Georgia in October 2006, and made his commitment official by signing a letter of intent to play at Georgia on February 6, 2008.

He played for coach Mark Richt's Georgia Bulldogs football team from 2008 to 2010.

Green had a solid freshman season for the 10–3 Georgia Bulldogs in 2008.

He joined a wide receivers unit that contained Mohamed Massaquoi, Michael Moore, Kris Durham, and Demiko Goodman.

In the fourth game of his college career, against Arizona State, Green had eight catches for 159 yards and a touchdown in the 27–10 victory.

For this, he was named SEC Player of the Week.

On October 18, against SEC East rival Vanderbilt, he had seven receptions for 132 receiving yards in the 24–14 victory.

He finished the 2008 season with 56 catches for 963 yards and eight touchdowns, all Georgia freshman school records.

He also led the SEC in receiving yards, with the third-highest total in UGA school history.

He was named second-team All-SEC and Freshman of the Year by the SEC coaches, and was named to the Associated Press All-SEC first-team.

As a sophomore, Green became the top option for the Georgia wide receivers group that added newcomers Tavarres King and Rantavious Wooten.

Green saw similar opportunities production-wise as a sophomore in Georgia's 8–5 season.

Green was selected by the Bengals with the fourth overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft, where he spent 10 seasons prior to joining the Arizona Cardinals for two years.

In 2023, Green signed a one day deal with the Bengals, and officially retired a member of the Cincinnati organization.

From 2011 to 2013, Green caught more passes (260) than any other player in NFL history during their first three seasons, a record that was later broken by Jarvis Landry and Odell Beckham Jr.. (288).

He had six seasons with 1,000 or more receiving yards.

Green signed with the Cardinals in 2021, having finished his Bengals career ranked second in franchise history, behind only Chad Johnson, in receiving yards, receiving touchdowns, and receptions.

When Green was age 4, his older brother and only sibling died in a car wreck on the way to a school carnival.

Green was on his elementary school's juggling team, telling The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that he learned to juggle as early as second grade.

Green said he could juggle as many as four items at once, and that the ability helped the development of his hand-eye coordination.

Green attended Summerville High School in Summerville, South Carolina, where he was a three-sport athlete in football, basketball, and track.

He played as a wide receiver for the Summerville Green Wave football team, under coach John McKissick.

Sports Illustrated compared him to the then-Oakland Raiders wideout Randy Moss and predicted Green will be in the NFL by 2011.

Green was also on the school's track & field team, where he competed as a long jumper (top-jump of 19 ft 6 in) and triple jumper (40 ft 0 in).

In his first season with the Bengals, Green made the 2012 Pro Bowl becoming the first rookie receiver to make a Pro Bowl appearance in eight years, and went on to accumulate a total of seven Pro Bowl appearances throughout his career.