It’s been just over a month since the Eagles’ season ended with a home loss to the 49ers that featured what appeared to be a heated shouting match between head coach Nick Siriani and wide receiver A.J. Brown on the sidelines. Despite late-season rumors that the team could consider the possibility of trading Brown in the offseason, it’s been all quiet on that front up to this point. It might not remain quiet for much longer, though. 
According to Dianna Russini of The Athletic, while “substantial conversations about his future have not yet taken place,” there are expectations that talks on the matter will “ramp up around the NFL combine.” With over 300 college athletes headed to Indianapolis next week for the NFL Scouting Combine, scouts and executives from every NFL team will be congregating to evaluate and speak with draft prospects. With so many personnel decisionmakers in one place, the combine has become a notorious event for teams to begin preliminary discussions on players that might be available for the right price. This allows front offices to gauge interest in players and determine which teams may be willing to enter conversations.
Until then, though, discussions on the possibility of Philadelphia dealing Brown have continuously pointed to the idea that, more likely than not, the veteran wide receiver isn’t going anywhere. Jason Fitzgerald of OvertheCap.com did a deep dive on the financial implications of cutting or trading Brown with four years remaining on his current contract. Cutting him makes little sense. Doing so now would only help the team avoid a nominal $4MM 2027 salary guarantee set to be triggered soon while still requiring them to cover his $29MM guaranteed salary for 2026, resulting in $72.45MM of dead money along with a loss of $49.06MM in cap space. A post-June 1 designation only slightly deflates those figures to $45.35MM of dead money with a $21.96MM cap loss.
Moving Brown in a trade is a bit more viable, due to the nature of how Philadelphia structures their contracts. Per Fitzgerald, the Eagles utilize option bonuses that cover “all of the salary for a player in a year except for the minimum that is mandated” by the Collective Bargaining Agreement. This essentially functions in the same way teams use signing bonuses on restructures to pay players more in a given year while reducing their cap hit for the season. The deadlines for those options do hit until late in the preseason, so the team gets all summer to explore trade options for Brown.
Financially, trading Brown now would have similar costs to designating him as a post-June 1 cut. The transaction would result in $43.45MM of dead money with a $20.06MM cap loss. Per Mike Garafolo of NFL Network, because of those costly figures, the Eagles would likely require some serious compensation in order to move him any time from now until June 1. Trading him June 2 or later finally starts to make some modicum of sense, as the dead money figure reduces to $16.35MM and $7.04MM of cap relief becomes a possibility.
With how difficult it could be to move Brown, there’s always a possibility that the Eagles resort to retaining the veteran wideout for the 2026 NFL season, and if Brown’s recent appearance on The Edge With Micah Parsons podcast is any indication, that very well could be where things are headed. Throughout the interview, Brown had only good things to say. When asked about the firing of offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo, Brown told host Micah Parsons that he had “the utmost respect for (Patullo),” going on to claim that “he did a tremendous job,” despite the offense racking up the ninth-fewest yards in the NFL. Brown even spoke on the future of the team. He started ambiguous, expressing his excitement “for the season” and “for what’s to come” but then laid out some team-oriented goals.
“As an offense, we just come back and just really watch tape and, like I said earlier, rediscover ourselves and go to work,“ Brown told his host. “We have great leadership in our locker room, and I’m fortunate to be part of it on offense. We do have a lot of talent, but talent gets us nowhere. It’s all about being detailed and disciplined.”
That all sounds nothing like a player making trade demands. That sounds everything like a player who has every intention of returning to run it back with his current team. There’s always a possibility that Brown realizes the financial restrictions his contract imposes on a potential trade and that acting like he has no intention of ever playing for the Eagles again would kill any leverage Philadelphia may need in order to accumulate the compensation necessary to make a trade worth the dead money and cap loss.
So, either Brown is playing the role of dutiful teammate to better his team’s chances of trading him or Brown is genuinely excited about his future with the team, and a trade might not be necessary. It’s hard to solidly get behind either theory at the moment, but more information may clear things up a bit once talks pick up at the NFL Scouting Combine next week.
Brown and a starting O-Lineman for Max Crosby. Everybody wins. Eagles pump out O-line and the Raiders can’t seam to figure that out. Gives Mendoza a legit threat on the outside with a big body to go with Bowers, and gives him the start of something significantly better in front of him to keep him upright.
What O-Lineman?
Any of them. They are all better than anyone the Raiders currently have. lol
No way should the Eagles add more than Brown to trade for Crosby.
Considering Crosby is better at being an edge than Brown is at being a receiver, I think pop gun is right that Philly would have to add to the deal. Maybe not a starting OL, but I can’t see why Vegas would do that 1 for 1.
I really don’t agree. AJ is one year removed from three huge years as an Eagle. He’s still a bonafide #1 in a league where those are hard to come by.
Crosby is far from cheap, and giving up AJ plus a starting offensive lineman or anything else for a guy who’s not that much younger than him and costs more is ridiculous.
He costs more because he’s an elite talent at a position with more scarcity. WR1s become available nearly every year–sometimes multiple in a year– while top 5 edges don’t (although it would be ironic if it happened in b2b years).
I think the pendulum has swung too far the other way on Brown because he’s still a borderline top 10 WR, but in the current times and with a killer WR class coming up, I don’t see how swapping the two 1 for 1 makes any sense for Vegas.
Keep AJ and throw him the ball. Pretty simple. Saquan taking a step down in 2025 wasn’t surprising, it’s hard to maintain that level year in and year out, especially as you age as a RB. But they didn’t throw the ball the AJ it seemed. 73 for 1000 and 7 TDs? He’s better than that.
It’s not even that.
Hurts fed him the ball the other years because Hurts is a one read QB, and AJ was the one most often in his field of vision.
It’s always been Hurts’ limitations and inability to read a defense causing these issues but there’s too many jockriders locally for anybody to admit it.
AJ is frustrated with Hurts. It was never about Patullo. People just scapegoated Patullo the same way they scapegoated AJ just like they ridiculously scapegoated Devonta Smith for chunks of 2024. All to deflect any potential criticism from the franchise QB who can’t read a defense or throw passes on time or on target.
True
You’ve clearly never truly watched tape on him if you’re blaming Hurts. Saying someone “can’t read a defense” when all they do is run 4 verticals or 4 hitches is absolutely absurd. There’s mountains of tape to prove people like you wrong about Hurts. It was the offensive design and he even made it look viable honestly, and it was highschool offense. Assuming they’re really changing the offense finally, when he wins another Super Bowl MVP next year people like you are gonna look really dumb for regurgitating the dumbass talking heads that are just click baiting.
I’ve watched every game Hurts has played. Enough of this nonsense.
He has never been anything other than a mediocre QB surrounded by superstars.
He had no business winning that Superbowl MVP Award.
It’s hilarious when people who so clearly never played the game act like they can identify NFL talent from their couch. You’re so wrong it’s not even funny
And yet you from your couch thinks your opinion is superior to some other couch sitter’s opinion.
You literally only need to have played at least a high school level to understand what progressions are. I’ve watched talking heads use film to show “a QB isn’t reading their progressions” and the film they are showing is actually proving them wrong. So yes, don’t talk about a QBs ability to read progressions if you’ve never played and have absolutely no idea how it’s coached. And it’s pretty easy to tell by how someone phrases their comments. Enjoy football, enjoy your fantasy sports and the stats and all that, but don’t pretend to know what a QB is good or isn’t good at when you honestly don’t have a clue.
He dropped more balls last year than ever in his career from what I watched … time to just focus on getting even better.
Texans
Texans 2nd round pick this year
Higgins
Brown Collins Kirk Dell Marks Schultz gives Stroud a better supporting cast
Texans trade back from 1st round again to recoup the 2nd rounder they lost plus other draft capital
LT Ersery
LG Howard
C – sign Tyler Linderbaum or draft a C
RG – draft or sign one I’d love Rutledge out of GT
RT – draft or sign one I’d love Isiah Worlds
That’d be a horrible trade by the Eagles.
Eagles don’t like dealing with “cancers”
Gardner Johnson was traded for Kenyon Green the former 1st rounder Texans took out of Texas AM
League knows Browns disgruntled. It’s either take lesser offers or deal with the personality that is Aj Brown which affected them last season for sure
And that was a horrible trade by Howie that he should never stop being criticized for.
Lots of words to say absolutely nothing new
There was the suggestion that GMs depend on the combine to do player evaluations and discuss possible trade deals which is rather absurd because the GMs were doing that long before the combine ever existed.
We said this last year and will continue to do so this year: this has always been made up sports talk garbage. I feel bad seeing fans who need a wr dive into to this.
AJ Brown might be the most selfish player in a league of selfish players. He’s certainly the most unlikable.
Ridiculous take.
He wants the ball and isnt a huge fan of a dominant running game but at least Barkley helped them get a championship. There wasnt as talented a team with Henry and the Titans. Hurts likes balance more than throwing a bunch.
Brown never said he wanted to be traded. It’s the team trying to get rid of him.
People scapegoat him to avoid criticizing Hurts despite Hurts having a just godawful season and being the one who cost his team a chance to repeat. Having guys like AJ and Devonta and Dallas is the only reason his numbers have been anything other than mediocre this entire time.
AJ and DK reunite in Pgh with the Steelers