What’s keeping the Eagles from trading A.J. Brown?

Yahoo Sports host Andrew Siciliano, senior NFL reporter Jori Epstein and senior betting analyst Ben Fawkes discuss an important date to keep track of when it comes to the Philadelphia Eagles trading WR A.J. Brown. Check out the full conversation on “Inside Coverage” – and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

Yeah, it’s really interesting because initially I was thinking AJ Brown would get traded during the first week of free agency.

This is one of the best receivers available or semi-available.

if you’re a team who wants him, and the Patriots seemed like a perfect match for so many reasons, then wouldn’t you wanna be able to plan accordingly?

You wanna get him before someone else did.

A week of free agency goes by and AJ Brown’s not traded.

So I started asking around and I’m like, “Huh, well maybe AJ Brown is going to get traded during the NFL draft after all.”

The Philadelphia Eagles acquired AJ Brown via a trade during the NFL draft when they traded during the first round from the Tennessee Titans, and I thought that made a lot of sense.

Hey, a team who wants a receiver doesn’t get the guy they want, all of a sudden they call up Howie, they’re more desperate, Howie gets the picks he wants which seem to be something like a first and a second.

It makes total sense.

But then the more I talked to people around the league, the more I actually learned it’s really unlikely Well, I shouldn’t say it’s unlikely.

The Eagles have to be willing to take a serious consequence in order to trade AJ Brown before June 2nd.

Because if they trade AJ Brown before June 2nd, they will have to absorb the entire $43.45 million in dead cap space on their 2026 salary cap.

They trade him afterwards, they could split it over a couple of years.

There’s not zero chance that the Eagles do this, especially after their extension or renegotiation with Dallas Goedert, but that is a lot of money for them to have to be willing to take on.

And I think it’s interesting because we hear so much about, oh, he’s being released, but it’s gonna be designated a post June fir- first release.

Or, oh, this is happening, but we’re designating this, we’re putting these void years.

And there are so many different Someone balked at me using the word loopholes when I was talking to them for this story.

But there are so many different mechanisms and rules through which the salary cap for a certain year does not have to be fixed, and it can be manipulated.

And even with a release you can call it a June 1st release, and yeah, you have to keep that money on your books for a bit, but you can start making moves around it.

But you can’t designate a trade as post June 1st, and you can’t involve a trade where you want something with 2026 picks unless you’re willing to take all the $43.45 million on this year’s cap.

So I just think it’s kind of this number that once they get it d- once they didn’t get it done at first, it’s possible they still trade, and it’s possible that they maneuver some of their other contracts with a willingness to keep this much, but it’s a lot of dead cap space for a guy who’s not gonna be on your team when, oh, by the way, you’re still gonna need someone to replace him ’cause he’s one of the best players on your team

What’s keeping the Eagles from trading A.J. Brown?

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