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Nothing But Gratitude for A.J. Brown, Who Was a Big Part of the Best Era of Philadelphia Eagles Football
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The Eagles traded A.J. Brown on Monday afternoon, ending a lengthy and tiresome saga enveloping the best receiver to wear midnight green since Terrell Owens.
The Birds got a 2028 1st round pick from the New England Patriots, and a 2027 5th. They’ll have to wait two years to use the former, assuming they keep it, but it might be a better situation overall if you think the Pats will take a step back after their Super Bowl run this past season, pushing the future pick higher up the draft board.
Either way, getting a 1st rounder back for A.J. is great business, considering the Eagles gave up a 1st rounder to get him four seasons ago, when he was 24 years old and coming off a “down” year in Tennessee, catching 63 passes in 13 games for 869 yards and five touchdowns. An aggressive Howie Roseman went out and secured a bona fide WR1 to pair with DeVonta Smith, nailing down the position after years of consternation that featured Carson Wentz and Nick Foles throwing the ball to Zach Ertz, Nelson Agholor, Alshon Jeffery, Greg Ward, and Dallas Goedert.
The Eagles had good players back then, but they didn’t have a superstar wide receiver, and A.J.’s acquisition changed the franchise outlook completely.
That’s my reaction to the A.J. trade news. It’s gratitude.
Whatever drama happened behind the scenes, whatever annoyances took place along the way, they don’t come close to casting a shadow over Brown’s on-field accomplishments, which include a Super Bowl victory and another championship pursuit in which the Birds just fell short. Along the way, he caught 339 of his 521 targets for 5,034 yards and 32 touchdowns, and that’s just in the regular season. He added 334 playoff yards and three touchdowns while catching 28 of the 52 balls thrown his way.
Among his big Eagles games you can certainly count Super Bowl 59 and the 2025 NFC Championship Game. After a couple of quiet performances against Green Bay and LA, Brown reeled in 9 of his 13 targets against Washington and Kansas City for 139 yards and two touchdowns, providing a key threat for an Eagles team that had run the hell out of the ball that season. Even during Saquon Barkley’s historically insane year, A.J. still crested 1,000 yards despite playing only 13 games and catching just 67 passes, a testament perhaps to his ‘go’ ball aptitude and high-percentile slant running. He averaged 16.1 yards per reception that season and was a brilliant big play counterbalance to the Birds’ grind-you-to-dust ground game.
Other games that stick out include:
- Super Bowl 57: 6 catches on 8 targets for 96 yards and a touchdown (if the defense had made one play in the game, perhaps A.J. has two rings)
- 2022 at Chicago: 9 catches on 16 targets for 181 yards (Eagles improved to 13-1 with this win)
- 2022 vs. Pittsburgh: caught 6 of his 10 targets for 156 yards and three touchdowns
- 2023 vs. Washington: 9 catches, 175 yards, two TDs in an overtime win
- 2023 at Washington: a perfect 8-8 receiving for 130 yards and two scores
- 2024 vs. Pittsburgh: 8 grabs for 110 yards and a touchdown (one week after everybody was melting down about the passing game, thinking the offense was broken)
Big game after big game.
At some point, we all realized how spoiled we were to have a stupid-good rushing attack AND a receiver pair of A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith at the same time. The Eagles had NEVER been loaded like that and they may never be that loaded again. It truly is incredible if you stop, pause, and give it some thought, which is admittedly hard to do when you’re thinking repeat Super Bowl and/or dynasty after that banger of a campaign.
And sure, there were moments of drama, some bad body language and slumped shoulders, cryptic tweets and annoying media scrums, but that’s par for the course when you have competitors who all want to win and all want the ball. If you find a locker room where everybody is best friends, everybody falls in line, and everybody is satisfied with how much playing time and usage they’re getting, then you’ve found a unicorn. Those locker rooms don’t exist. That’s why the A.J. Brown drama was always over overrated, because it comes with the territory when you’re talking about highly paid athletes who are driven and motivated to perform at the highest level. It’s ubiquitous in major American sports, and life in general, because unless you’re a nun and living in the convent, you’re probably carrying some sort of baggage.
When you look at how the Terrell Owens era flamed out spectacularly, the fact that we got four great seasons out of A.J. feels truly unbelievable by comparison. Hell, they went to the Super Bowl in 50% of the seasons that A.J. played here! And when you think about the zeitgeist of the Wentz and Foles era, that tough 2020 and the transition into the Jalen Hurts era, the receiver position was a big deal. Going out and drafting Smitty and trading for A.J. really ushered in a new era of Philadelphia Eagles football and told everybody else in the NFL that this team was absolutely for real. Roseman was so aggressive in upgrading the roster and he went right after a WR1 killer, a big-bodied guy who could make contested catches and bomb the sidelines and provide a lot of confidence and trust that when you throw him the ball, he’s probably catching it.
Considering the context, don’t you have to look at the A.J. Brown era with gratitude?
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com