Although it was clear that the relationship had run its course, the trade of receiver A.J. Brown requires the Eagles to manage their passing game without him.
G.M. Howie Roseman knows it will be a challenge.
“A.J. Brown was a huge, huge part of our football team, a great player for us, and that loss will have to be picked up by more than just one player,” Roseman told a group of reporters on Monday, via Zach Berman of The Athletic.
The Eagles believe that DeVonta Smith could step easily into the No. 1 role. Smith, as Roseman also said, is “really, really, really good player, and [I’m] excited for him to continue to improve and shine as a player.”
The Eagles also spent much of the offseason adding receivers to the mix. They signed Hollywood Brown and Elijah Moore. They traded for Dontayvion Wicks, who knows the new offense. They drafted Makai Lemon in the first round.
The Eagles have the quantity. The issue is replacing the quality that they had with Brown.
But there’s also a projection to be made. After seven years of NFL wear and tear, the soon-to-be-29-year-old Brown could be moving toward the end of his prime. Beyond needing to trade Brown because Brown no longer wanted to be there, it’s unclear how much longer Brown would have continued to be the player he had been in his four seasons with the Eagles.
The Pro Football Writers of America has selected Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio as the winner of the 2026 Paul “Dr. Z” Zimmerman Award.
Fangio is the 28th recipient of the Dr. Z Award, which the PFWA instituted in 2014.
The Dr. Z Award is awarded for lifetime achievement as an assistant coach in the NFL. The award is named for Zimmerman, who covered the NFL for 29 years as Sports Illustrated‘s lead pro football writer.
Other 2026 finalists for the Dr. Z Award were retired offensive position coach/coordinator Terry Robiskie and the late defensive line coach John Teerlinck.
Fangio completed his second season as the Eagles’ defensive coordinator and his 39th NFL season overall in 2025. He has coached five Pro Football Hall of Famers — Kevin Greene, Rickey Jackson, Ray Lewis, Sam Mills and Patrick Willis — and was selected as the PFWA NFL Assistant Coach of the Year in 2018.
The Eagles filled the spot on their 90-man roster that opened up when they traded wide receiver A.J. Brown to the Patriots on Monday.
They announced that they have signed running back Elijah Mitchell.
Mitchell spent last season with the Chiefs and appeared in one game before being released in December. He spent his first four seasons with the 49ers, but missed all of 2024 after suffering a hamstring injury.
Mitchell had 207 carries for 963 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie with the Niners, but a knee injury in 2022 and the arrival of Christian McCaffrey during that season limited his opportunities over the rest of his tenure.
Saquon Barkley, Tank Bigsby, Will Shipley, Dameon Pierce, and Carson Steele are the other backs in Philly.
Wide receiver A.J. Brown’s final season with the Eagles featured a lot of talk about his dissatisfaction with the team’s offense and the nature of his relationship with quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Brown weighed in on the latter topic during an interview with Maria Taylor after Monday’s long-awaited trade to the Patriots. Brown said he doesn’t understand why there was so much attention paid to his relationship with Hurts, but acknowledged that the two men are “not as close as we once were” by the end of their final season together.
The receiver insisted “that didn’t stop anything” the team was trying to do on the field and said there was no particular incident that led to the change.
“Nothing happened, people just grow apart,” Brown said. “Nothing happened between me and him, or our families, wives, anything. Nothing like that ever happened. Life happens and you just look up sometimes and you just you find yourself drifting away and that’s fine. And I think both parties accepted that.”
Brown said he wants Hurts to do well and “accomplish everything his heart desires,” but he’ll no longer have a hand in helping Hurts or the Eagles reach any of their goals.
After the Eagles shipped receiver A.J. Brown to the Patriots on Monday for a 2028 first-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick, Philadelphia G.M. Howie Roseman met with a group of reporters to discuss the move.
As Roseman see it, a first-round pick is a first-round pick, whether that pick is made in 2026, 2027, or 2028.
“For us to take a 2026 pick, and that’s a late first-round pick, and obviously also have to deal with the cap consequences that come with making a trade prior to June 1, it made some sense for us to look at future picks,” Roseman said, via Zach Berman of The Athletic. “We’ve always been in the mindset a pick is a pick — a first-round pick is a first-round pick. Doesn’t matter. Teams are still going to be playing football in 2028.”
Right, but many teams generally regard a future first-round pick as a current second-round pick. That said, if the Patriots struggle in 2027, the pick in 2028 will be much higher than the 31st overall pick the Eagles would have gotten in 2026.
Then there’s the difference between overall classes. At this point, no one truly knows how “good” the 2028 class will be, relative to 2027.
It’s safe to say the Eagles would have preferred a first-round pick in 2027.
Regardless, it was a win to get any first-round pick for a player who no longer wanted to be with the Eagles, and whom the Eagles no longer wanted to keep. After months of speculation that the shelf life on the relationship had expired, the Eagles finally moved on.
“I think from our perspective, getting a first-round pick for our team, having two first-round picks in ‘28 is a huge, huge part of this move,” Roseman said. “I think that when you look at that and obviously the options of what you’re able to do with having multiple first-round picks, it’s a huge game-changer, and feel very, very confident that those picks are the most valuable things that you can add as you’re building your team. I know there’s a lot of attention on the 2027 draft, but at the same time, looking at the ‘28 draft, I feel confident that that’s going to be a good draft as well, and that we’ll be in position to really improve our football team.”
It’s a glass-half-full assessment of the situation. Ultimately, the Eagles got only four seasons from Brown in exchange for the first-round pick they sacrificed in 2022. And he helped them win a Super Bowl.
Still, if they’d used that selection, they could have gotten a player who could be entering his prime in 2026. Instead, after four years with Brown, they’ll get a first-round pick six years after the first-round pick they gave up to get Brown in the first place.
