Trade talk before the draft makes no sense.
There’s so much talk about the Philadelphia Eagles trading A.J. Brown that it’s almost as if nobody has stopped to see if it’s even possible. There’s no doubt the relationship between Brown and head coach Nick Sirianni has become acrimonious, and when that’s combined with Brown’s massive contract, it’s difficult to see him sticking around. The issue is that the Eagles can’t trade Brown right now, even if they wanted to — not without gutting their entire team in the process.
Brown has $45M remaining on the three-year, $96M extension he signed in 2024 — but critically, that contract came with $84M in guarantee money, and that’s the sticking point here. If the Eagles were to trade Brown right now then the signing bonus would accelerate into their current cap, rather than allowing them to stretch it over two seasons. As a result the Eagles would take a $43M dead cap hit, while adding an astonishing $20M.
Could the Eagles do it? Sure, but it would mean losing a lot of valuable players. The team would need to find a trade partner for Jordan Davis (which would be easy), cut Michael Carter II, as well as likely releasing several more young talents to accommodate a $20M hit from Brown. It would necessitate a trade offer so monumental that it was worth it to the Eagles to make these moves, and it’s unclear what that would even look like. Two first-round picks and more? Is there a team that would even offer that?
Considering all this, it’s still entirely likely that Brown gets traded, just not yet. When the calendar turns over to June 1 this is an entirely new ballgame. Being able to spread the dead cap over two years completely changes A.J. Brown’s contract, with a post-June 1 deal meaning a $16.4M dead cap hit, and just over $7M in savings. It’s at this point that it makes sense for the Eagles to move on, if they’ve settled on the relationship not working anymore.
The downside to a post-June 1 trade is that there’s less incentive for teams to make deals, so typically trade values are lower. In addition, Philadelphia would need to wait until the 2027 NFL Draft to see any meaningful return, making their team worse in the process.
The point of all this is to say that for all the speculation about Brown being dealt, it’s just not going to happen before the 2026 NFL Draft. Forget any ideas about the Eagles netting additional firsts, or a pie-in-the-sky idea of a Brown for Maxx Crosby swap — they’re just not possible, especially the idea of Brown for Crosby. That would require the Eagles to somehow find $50M in cap space, which is absolutely impossible without gutting the entire defense in cuts and trades.
There’s a simple reality that all the guaranteed money has caught up to the Eagles and they’re paying for their Super Bowl success. It’s not the end of the world, because the team is still in decent financial shape — but that gets ruined when we talk about a rushed trade of A.J. Brown.
Category: General Sports
