What had been rumored for months, starting with the news Bleeding Green Nation broke in January, finally came to fruition when A.J. Brown was traded on Monday, June 1, to the New England Patriots for a first-round pick in the 2028 NFL Draft and a fifth-round pick in the 2027 NFL Draft.
It the worst kept secret in the NFL, which could have hurt Eagles’ general manager Howie Roseman’s leverage in getting a first-round pick for what will soon be a 29-year-old wide receiver who may be on the downside of his career.
It didn’t.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel did not want Brown traded to the Eagles in 2022, when he was the Tennessee Titans coach, where the Titans received the Eagles’ 18th (Treylon Burks, who turned into an eventual first-round bust) in the 2022 NFL Draft for Brown, who signed a four-year, $100 million contract with the Eagles.
Brown had been unhappy in Philadelphia for the last two seasons, including the Eagles’ 2024 LIX Super Bowl-winning year.
Trading Brown now clears the Eagles $7.04 million in 2026 salary cap space. Trading Brown prior to that would have carried a total dead cap hit of $43.45 million. Trading him past June 1 transaction allows the Eagles to spread the penalty over two years, with $16.35 million against the cap in 2026, with the remaining $27.1 million in 2027. The Patriots assume the remainder of his contract and will take on a highly manageable cap hit of just $6.79 million in 2026.
This past season, A.J. Brown had asked for a trade numerous times (as early as after the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Los Angeles Rams in Week 3, multiple sources confirmed to Bleeding Green Nation). Brown was coming off his worst season as a pro since 2021, when he caught career-lows with 63 passes for 869 yards and five touchdowns. This season, he caught 78 passes for 1,003 yards.
When asked about the possibility of trading Brown this offseason at a Thursday, January 15 Eagles’ year-end press conference, Roseman said, “It is hard to find great players in the NFL, and A.J. is a great player. I think from my perspective, that’s what we’re going out and looking for when we go out here in free agency, in the draft, just trying to find great players who love football, and he’s that guy.”
Roseman was trying to divert attention from the reality of the situation.
Brown may not be that guy any longer. He was disgruntled all last season. He did not have the speed to create separation from a defender anymore, and despite his complaining about not getting the ball, he suffered from a spate of drops this season that were highly uncharacteristic of him. A bold case in point came in the Eagles’ 23-19 Wild Card round playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers.
Brown dropped a pass down the middle on a third-and-five at the Eagles’ 40 with 2:21 left to play. The ball went right through his hands. Brown was targeted seven times in the game, catching three passes for mere 25 yards—and he looked old, and creaky doing it.
Brown and Jalen Hurts may be in a “good, great place” right now, they may both agree Hurts may not be the quarterback for him at this stage of his career. When asked in November about the possibility of Brown being traded, Roseman said, “I think that when you’re trying to be a great team, it’s hard to trade great players, and A.J. Brown is a great player. He wears a ‘C’ for a reason. He’s an important part of this team, of this organization. He cares about winning, he cares about his teammates, and I think when you’re a team like ours that is looking forward to an opportunity to compete for a championship, you just don’t get rid of guys like that.”
Of course, Roseman said that.
He also said that about Carson Wentz in January 2021.
“When you have players like that, they’re like fingers on your hands,” Roseman said. “You can’t even imagine that they’re not a part of you, that they’re not here. That’s how we feel about Carson.”
Roseman traded Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts on March 17, 2021.
He made a similar statement about Brown, and now he is gone—and had to go—in June.
Roseman and the Eagles were not about to have their team implode over another disgruntled, popular player, a lesson learned by the highly visible Terrell Owens’ meltdown in dispute with the franchise quarterback Donovan McNabb during the 2005 season.
Brown is a very popular player on the Eagles. If you sent an anonymous poll throughout the Eagles’ 2025 locker room on who the team would prefer to be traded in a choice between Brown and Hurts, maybe as much as 75-percent would have rather seen Hurts traded.
But Brown is not a franchise quarterback, and it was Brown—not Hurts—who was making the noise with cryptic social media posts and comments about the offense.
The Eagles are perennial Super Bowl contenders, as they should be again this coming 2026 season, because they are a proactive team that accommodates its players—even its discontented players who want out. Roseman and Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni were not about to the self-sabotage the 2026 season by squeezing the proverbial square peg (Brown) through the round hole, while alienating the rest of the team, because Brown wanted his numbers.
The deal was, according to a few sources close to the situation, that Brown stay off social media, keep quiet and to himself, and the Eagles would accommodate him after the 2025 season.
It made no sense for Brown, regardless of how talented he may still be, to remain with the Eagles, considering the possible locker room tension his presence was going to bring in 2026.
Brown had played the good soldier throughout the 2024 season, giving way to the Eagles’ road-grinding offensive line and Saquon Barkley. A major reason why the Eagles were Super Bowl champions was because everyone bought into the running, bully-ball scheme the Eagles used. Once the season was over, Brown decided, according to a few sources, that he wanted his share of the offense run through him. There were times he was wide open when Hurts did not see him, especially down the middle.
It appears A.J. Brown is in a healthier place, and so, too, are the Eagles without him.