Howard Eskin checking in on a Thursday morning to blast the A.J. Brown trade “rumor” –

I was Just on morning show @SportsRadioWIP and it’s clear they have an AGENDA which is by definition “ an agenda is a plan.” That’s regardless of fact. Talking about what they say is rumor about AJ Brown possibly being traded. A rumor from where. Nowhere. Made up media BS. #Eagles have no intention of trading Brown. NONE! Then they gloss over the incredible endorsement of Jason Kelce of his HC Nick Sirianni. As good as any I’ve ever heard. Since the show was on a mission to get Sirianni fired, Kelce’s comments (can listen to in previous tweet) are glossed over. Sirianni is a good HC. Why can’t we have great conversation with the truth or reality? Because that’s not the AGENDA.

I put rumor in quotes because I have no idea where it came from or how it even started. I think people took A.J. scrubbing his social media accounts to be some sort of veiled message, then it turned into a hypothetical that the WIP hosts began talking about, and Kay Adams asked A.J. about it on her show.

One of the things you’ll hear about an A.J. Brown trade is that it will never happen because the Eagles would eat a massive dead cap hit. That is true.

Brown signed a four-year deal with the Birds in May of 2022, and at Spotrac, he’s listed with a $12,428,800 cap hit this season and a dead cap number around $42 million.

Spotrac explains dead cap this way:

With a trade, the future guarantees would simply transfer to the new team, leaving behind just the unallocated bonus cap as the current team’s dead cap.

…

Any guaranteed base salary that has yet to be paid out is considered dead cap on the contract. Should the player be released, all guaranteed salary will accelerate and be treated as dead cap in the current season. If traded, any unpaid guaranteed salary will transfer to the new team.

It’s similar to the Carson Wentz trade. The Eagles didn’t just dump all of the owed money onto the Colts. The Birds were responsible for a portion of that, which, at the time, was $33.8 million and the largest dead cap hit in NFL history. That’s since been eclipsed with the Aaron Rodgers and Matt Ryan trades, but Carson had a signing bonus spread out over four years, which resulted in the big number.

That’s the gist. Trading A.J. Brown would make no sense on the field and no sense off the field.