It wasn’t enough for the Eagles to come to trade terms with the Titans for A.J. Brown on Thursday night. They also had to contract terms with Brown and his agent.
And they had to do it before they were on the clock at 18.
“It was really getting tight,” Roseman said on Thursday night.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Philadelphia sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
Eventually, the Eagles traded the No. 18 pick and the No. 101 pick to Tennessee for Brown and gave him a four-year extension reportedly worth $100 million with $57 million guaranteed.
The money is the reason he got traded in the first place. Apparently, the Titans didn’t even come close to matching the Eagles’ deal. Brown gave his side of the story to ESPN’s Turron Davenport.
"This wasn't my fault," Brown told ESPN. "I wanted to stay, but the deal they offered was a low offer. The deal they offered wasn't even $20 million a year."
Davenport reported that the Titans’ offer to Brown was worth $16 million per season and could have been worth up to just $20 million with incentives.
NFL
For a 24-year-old receiver with two 1,000-yard seasons in three years, that’s a low-ball offer. And because the two sides were so far apart, the Titans decided to trade him away a year before his contract was up to recoup some value from Brown before they lost him to free agency in a year.
With the new contract, Brown’s average per year during the four-year extension is $25 million. That makes him the third-highest-paid receiver in the NFL behind just Tyreek Hill, Davante Adams and DeAndre Hopkins, according to OverTheCap.
The Titans’ offer of $16M APY? That would have put him 17th in the NFL among receivers, below his new Titans teammate Robert Woods ($16.25M).
Brown told ESPN he would have stayed in Tennessee if they reached $22 million per season.
That, it turns out, still would have been a hometown discount.
“The trade was contingent on us getting an extension, so something we were working on during the course of the draft,” Roseman said. “We were just kind of trying to balance finishing that and if we didn't finish that, making sure we also got the right players.”
The Eagles were willing to trade away a first-round pick and sign Brown to a huge contract because they believe in his fit in Nick Sirianni’s offense and his ability to be a perfect complement to last year’s first-round pick DeVonta Smith. Those two have the makings of a top-tier tandem in the NFL.
Subscribe to the Eagle Eye podcast
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | Art19 | Watch on YouTube