ThePhillySportsBlog

Was the AJ Brown experience really worth it for the Philadelphia Eagles?  Well, it’s complicated. 

Now that the inevitable trade of WR AJ Brown to the New England Patriots has become official, we need to look at his tenure with the Philadelphia Eagles.   

Brown can be included in the list of the greatest Eagles WRs of all time.  Normally I would consider a statement like that about a player who was only with a team for four seasons to be ridiculous, but Brown’s numbers were pretty darn amazing with the Eagles.  But to be clear, Mike Quick is, without question, the greatest WR in Eagles history.  Quick just played in a different era where the rules weren’t slanted towards the offense to make the game more exciting for TV and gambling. 

Here are Brown’s stats during his four seasons (62 regular season games) with the Eagles: 

AJ Brown  NFL Rank 

339 Receptions      7^th 

5,034 Yards Receiving      6^th 

32 TDs      9^th 

Those are very good numbers, but digging deeper you can see that Brown might be a player in decline.   

In his first year in Philadelphia, Brown set the Eagles franchise record for receiving yards in a season, with 1,496 in 2022.  He followed that up with 1,456 yards in 2023.  The problem is that he fell back to 1,079 yards receiving in 2024, when the Eagles rightfully changed their offensive philosophy to a run-based attack behind the best offensive line in the NFL and Saquan Barkley.  That led to a Lombardi Trophy, so it made perfect sense.  It also led to some resentment from Brown.  But then Brown only had 1,003 yards receiving last season, even though the team forced the ball to him to try to keep him happy. 

And that’s the problem.  Brown is never satisfied.  After winning the Super Bowl, Brown was quoted as saying that he didn’t feel “fulfilled” by a championship because he didn’t put up big stats.  Sure, his 3 catches for 43 yards and 1 TD weren’t eye-popping, but the Eagles defense absolutely dominated the KC Chiefs, so the offense didn’t need to pile up the stats to win the game. 

But Brown’s worst game as an Eagle was his last. You could call it the last straw.  Last season’s playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers was unacceptable and put an exclamation point on the need to trade Brown.  Worse than his meager stat line of 3 catches for 25 yards and no scores, was the fact that he also dropped three passes, and he seemed to quit on a few routes and passes.  His selfishness cost the Eagles dearly in a game they could have won if their No. 1 WR put forth his best effort.   

WRs are known to be divas, but Brown takes it to another level.  Despite reports that Brown is respected in the locker room, his me-first personality is detrimental to the team. 

He continually threw his former friend and QB, Jalen Hurts under the bus in interviews and online.  Now, I’m certainly not the biggest Hurts backer out there, but openly criticizing the QB of your team is not great for team morale.  I don’t even care if his criticisms were correct.  You don’t air your dirty laundry in public.  The whole reading a book on the sideline thing was a joke that he should have been suspended for. He even got into a very public argument with his head coach on the sideline of that Eagles playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers last season.  Again, I’m never going to defend Sirianni, but players normally don’t get into it with their head coach on the sideline. 

I think we can all agree that AJ Brown is a problem and always will be.  He has now forced his way out of two franchises, and it’s only a matter of time before he finds something that he doesn’t like in New England.  Those cheaters deserve every problem he’s about to bring them.  But that’s not our concern right now. 

Howie Roseman had been planning for this trade since last season, when Brown demanded a trade during the season.  This offseason, Roseman signed Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, traded for Dontayvion Wicks and drafted Makai Lemon with the No. 20 overall pick in the draft to bolster the WR corps.   With the switch to Sean Mannion’s new offensive philosophy of spreading the ball around to multiple WRs, they might actually be better off with that group, plus Devonta Smith, than they would have been with Brown demanding the ball be thrown to him constantly.  Obviously, we’ll see. 

Now, I know Roseman had to trade Brown, but I still don’t think he played his cards right in this situation. 

Roseman made a very public statement through the media that the Eagles would not trade Brown for anything less than 1^st and 2^nd round draft picks.  That was a ludicrous statement when he made it, and it hurt the Eagles.   

Asking for that much pushed quite a few possible trade partners away at a time when the Eagles needed as many offers on the table as they could get.  It reduced the field to one team willing to trade for Brown, New England.  There were reports that the LA Rams were interested in Brown, but I guess something got lost in translation there, since the Rams trade for A Brown and not AJ Brown.   

Ultimately, Roseman had to settle for a 1^st round pick in 2028 and a 5^th round pick in 2027.  That’s a far cry from what Roseman insisted he needed and trying to spin it as getting a 1^st round pick is a bit disingenuous.  “A 1^st round pick is a 1^st round pick”, Roseman said in announcing the trade.  No, Howie. A 1^st round pick two years from now is far less valuable than getting a pick sooner.  

The mitigating circumstance here is that Roseman couldn’t trade Brown before June 1 because of the cap implications.  But let’s not give Roseman too much credit here.  It’s not like he saved cap space by waiting until after June 1 to trade Brown.  The Eagles were only able to split the dead cap hit from Brown’s contract over two years by waiting.  So instead of having a dead cap hit of $43 million in 2026, it becomes a dead cap hit of $16 million in 2026 and $27 million in 2027.  Oh, and Jeffrey Lurie gets to save over $133 million in cash while he blackmails the city and state into funding a billion-dollar domed stadium nobody wants or needs.   

Ultimately, I would have to say that AJ Brown’s time as an Eagle should be considered a success.  He was great for two years, they won a Super Bowl, then he wasn’t so good on the field or off it.  Now he’s gone for a couple of draft picks, off in the distant future.  Hopefully, Brown does the same thing in New England that he’s already done in Tennessee and Philadelphia and causes some turmoil.  That way, the 2028 draft pick will be better. 

While the Eagles and Patriots don’t play this coming season, they do play in New England in the preseason and will have joint practices before that game.  Personally, I wish Buddy Ryan was still the Eagles head coach so he could put a bounty on AJ Brown’s head during those joint practices.  (I wonder where Luis Zendejas is these days?)