MINNEAPOLIS, MN – OCTOBER 19: Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown (11) looks on before the NFL game between the Minnesota Vikings and Philadelphia Eagles on October 19th, 2025, at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, MN. (Photo by Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown has been a fixture in the NFL’s trade-rumor mill in recent weeks, which is in part of his own doing.
Save for a six-catch, 109-yard, one-touchdown outing in a 33-26 win over the Los Angeles Rams in Week 3, Brown got off to a quiet start this season. After he finished with only two catches for seven yards the following week in a 31-25 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers—a game in which the Eagles did not complete a single pass in the second half—Brown let his frustration boil over by sending a cryptic message on X.
“If you’re not welcomed, not listened to, quietly withdraw,” Brown wrote in the since-deleted post. “Don’t make a scene. Shrug your shoulders and be on your way.”
In the Eagles’ Week 7 win over the Minnesota Vikings, Brown hauled in four passes for a season-high 121 yards and two touchdowns. After that game, he posted a picture on Instagram with the caption “Using me but not using me.”
Brown missed the Eagles’ Week 8 win against the New York Giants with a hamstring injury. The Eagles rushed for a season-high 276 yards without him, while quarterback Jalen Hurts threw a season-high four touchdown passes against the Giants’ depleted secondary. That led to even more speculation about Brown’s future after the game.
“It sure looks like the Eagles are willing if not eager to get phone calls about A.J. Brown,” Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk said Wednesday. He believed it seems like “an effort by the Eagles to shop A.J. Brown without shopping A.J. Brown” in the hopes that a team blows them away with an offer.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported the Eagles “are not expected” to trade Brown before the Nov. 4 trade deadline, although he added that they “would be willing to listen to any trade offer.” However, sources told Schefter that the Eagles “would not be willing to part with Brown for anything less than a blockbuster offer, which is not expected to be forthcoming.”
Among other reasons, the Eagles have a $60 million incentive to stand pat with Brown between now and the trade deadline.
The Financial Hurdles To An A.J. Brown Trade
If the Eagles were to trade Brown ahead of the deadline, they’d be left with a $16.35 million dead-cap hit this season. Brown has a $17.523 million cap hit, so they’d only gain $1.17 million in cap savings by trading him.
The bigger issue would come in 2026, as they’d be left with a dead-cap charge of $43.5 million. Brown is set to have a cap hit next year of only $23.4 million, so they’d be paying $20-plus million more for him not to play for them.
After the 2026 season, the Eagles have a potential out in Brown’s contract. If they traded him before June 1, they’d be left with a dead-cap hit of $27.2 million, which is roughly $4.5 million than his $22.7 million cap hit that year. But if they designated him as a post-June 1 trade, they’d have a $15.7 million dead-cap hit in 2027 and a $15.4 million dead-cap hit in 2028, both of which should be fairly manageable. The NFL’s salary cap has increased by nearly $100 million since 2021 alone, so it figures to be well north of $300 million by 2027.
If Brown remains disgruntled through the remainder of the season, perhaps the Eagles would be willing to split the difference and revisit trade discussions in the 2026 offseason. They’d have that same $43.5 million dead-cap hit in 2026 if they traded him before June 1, but a post-June 1 trade would leave them with only a $16.3 million dead-cap hit in 2026 and a $27.2 million dead-cap hit in 2027. They’d save roughly $7 million in 2026 cap space by splitting up his dead-cap charges across the two seasons.
Either way, it makes no financial sense for the Eagles to trade Brown this season. They’d be far better off waiting until at least this offseason.
The Eagles’ Receiving Corps Sans Brown
Money isn’t the only reason why the Eagles seem reluctant to trade Brown. Although they beat the Giants without him, their passing game has struggled when he’s missed games in past years. Two of their three losses in the 2024 season came without him early in the year.
If the Eagles traded Brown without acquiring another wide receiver, their pass-catching corps would be led by wideout DeVonta Smith, who’s had at least 60 catches for 800 yards and five touchdowns in each of his first four seasons, and tight end Dallas Goedert, who already has a career-high seven receiving touchdowns in only seven games this year.
Beyond that, though, the Eagles don’t have much of note.
Barkley currently ranks fourth on the team in both catches (24) and receiving yards (159) this season. Wideout Jahan Dotson has caught eight passes for 151 yards and one touchdown, but he’s been targeted only 14 times across the first eight games of the season. Beyond that, no one else on the team has more than four catches or 40 receiving yards.
The Eagles just traded John Metchie III, whom they acquired in a trade with the Houston Texans in mid-August, to the New York Jets for cornerback Michael Harris II. Beyond that, they have undrafted rookie wideout Darius Cooper, a training camp standout whom they recently activated from injured reserve, and Xavier Gipson, who has one catch for three yards on the year.
If the Eagles traded Brown, they’d be one Smith injury away from a receiving corps being led by Dotson, Cooper and Gipson. That’d hardly be an ideal scenario for a defending Super Bowl champion that’s looking to defend its crown.
If the Eagles are taking calls on Brown, they may just be doing some preemptive groundwork and laying the foundation for an offseason trade. But unless some team bowls them over with a massive offer, it’s hard to make the case for a Brown trade either from an on-field or financial perspective this season.