Should Eagles consider trading A.J. Brown? – NBC Sports Philadelphia

1. I love A.J. Brown the player when he’s at the top of his game and mentally locked in. As far as pure talent, he’s up there with Mike Quick and T.O. as one of the most gifted modern-era WRs we’ve ever seen here. That said, the player we saw last year was not at the top of his game, and there were a lot of reasons for that, but it’s a mistake to blame everything on Kevin Patullo and let A.J. totally off the hook. Patullo didn’t drop all those passes in the 49ers playoff game. Patullo isn’t the one who was distracted throughout the season. Patullo isn’t the one who too often chose to focus on social media instead of the football field. The more I think about it the more I wonder if a trade wouldn’t be best for everybody. A.J. turns 29 this summer and physically is not the player he used to be and he just seems like a guy who wants and needs a fresh start somewhere else. Would it be catastrophic to lose A.J.? It depends who you replace him with, but that’s why Howie is correct keeping the price tag high. If you get a 1^st and a 2^nd back you can start packaging picks and find your way into the upper reaches of the first round for maybe a Jordyn Tyson or K.C. Concepcion to super-charge your wide receiver room. Now you’ve gotten younger, faster and cheaper at WR, you’ve eliminated the potential headache of an unhappy, distracted veteran in the locker room and you’ve got both DeVonta Smith and the new guy under contract for the foreseeable future. In a perfect world, you’d love to have A.J. Brown back if it’s the all-pro A.J. Brown of 2022 and 2023. But I’m not sure that guy’s coming back, and the last thing this team needs is a guy who isn’t committed to being a Philadelphia Eagle. At first, trading Brown seemed unthinkable. But as we go through the offseason, it’s seeming more and more reasonable.

2A. I love the Riq Woolen signing despite his obvious maturity issues, which we all saw manifest themselves in the NFC Championship Game with his potentially costly taunting penalty after breaking up a pass from Drake Maye to Puka Nacua. He knows better, and kind of like C.J.G.J. he knows he can’t keep doing dumb stuff to put his team in bad positions. But I’ll take a talented shutdown corner who needs to grow up a little over a choirboy who can’t cover. I trust the Eagles’ culture to keep Woolen in line, and that’s one nice thing about a one-year contract: If he has any behavioral issues that hurt the team you just don’t bring him back and his value goes down on the open market. Now he’s costing himself money and players don’t like doing that. Woolen knows if it wasn’t for questions about his behavior he probably wouldn’t have had to sign a one-year deal. “Once you make a play, just turn to your sideline and go there,” Woolen said at the Jefferson Health Training Complex Thursday. “You can never go wrong if you celebrate with your teammates. You can never go wrong if you just get to your sideline if you make a play.” I love Woolen’s personality and I love the edge he plays with and I love his competitive spirit. Just keep it within the rules and the Eagles just may be onto something here. At least for one year.

2B. When have the Eagles had three corners this talented? Lito Sheppard, Sheldon Brown and Asante Samuel were together for one year in 2008, and the Eagles had the NFL’s 3^rd-ranked pass defense and 3^rd-ranked overall defense and went to the NFC Championship Game and should have won. Lito signed with the Jets the next year and Brown signed with the Browns a year after that. But for one year, Sheppard, Brown and Samuel played together in a weird but effective cornerback platoon and defensive coordinator Jim Johnson and secondary coach Sean McDermott made sure it worked. I can’t wait to see what it looks like this year with these three playing together. Like Woolen said, “Dang, where can you throw the ball to?” 

3. Someone has to explain to me how Jaelan Phillips gets a bigger contract than Trey Hendrickson. The Panthers gave Phillips $120 million over three years, which is a ridiculous overpay, and the Ravens signed Hendrickson to a four-year, $112 million contract. Why? Let’s look at the two edge rushers. Hendrickson has averaged 12.4 sacks per season since becoming a full-time player in 2020. He’s had four double-digit seasons, with 13 ½ sacks for the Saints in 2020 and then with the Bengals 14 in 2021 and then consecutive 17 ½-sack seasons in 2023 and 2024. He made four Pro Bowls and was a 1^st-team all-pro in 2024. Philips has averaged 5 ½ sacks since becoming a full-time player in 2022. He’s had no double-digit sack seasons, made no Pro Bowls, never been an all-pro 1^st or 2^nd-team pick and over the last four years has about half as many sacks as Hendrickson – 37 to 19 ½. Phillips is a good player. He sure as heck isn’t a $30 million player.

4. Jalen Hurts Stat of the Week: Hurts’ interception percentage last year – 1.3 for 1.3 INTs every 100 pass attempts – is lowest in NFL history by a quarterback who threw four interceptions in a game the same year. Hurts threw four INTs in 40 pass attempts in the Eagles’ loss to the Chargers. He threw two other INTs in 414 other attempts during the regular season.

5A. I was reading the comments on social media under Dave Zangaro’s story about Brett Toth signing with the 49ers and they were universally negative: “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out,” or, “No big loss there,” and of course, the obligatory, “Who cares?” Guess what. Brett Toth played well last year and there were people who believed he should have been starting over a banged-up Cam Jurgens late in the season. Toth has this reputation as a slappy because he was undrafted, he’s bounced around on various practice squads, been released numerous times in his career by several teams. But by last year Toth had hammered himself into a pretty effective player. Out of 128 interior offensive linemen who played at least 250 snaps last year, his Pro Football Focus grade of 73.6 ranked 21^st and his 75.6 run block grade ranked 16^th. He was a typical Jeff Stoutland guy, growing from undrafted and unwanted into a decent player. Toth played well, and if you were paying attention you would have noticed. He’ll be missed, and especially considering the injury issues Jurgens and Landon Dickerson have dealt with his departure leaves a pretty significant hole in the o-line room.

5B. All of a sudden, Drew Kendall becomes a pretty important young prospect. Kendall was the Eagles’ 5^th-round pick out of Boston College last year but only played at the end of the blowout win over the Raiders and the meaningless year-ender vs. the Commanders. He only played center in those two games but got work at guard in training camp and the preseason games, the first time he had played guard since high school. The Eagles seem to like Kendall and this could be a big year for him because as the roster sits right now he’d be the top interior backup. And considering the injury questions surrounding Landon Dickerson and Cam Jurgens, backup interior o-line looks like an awfully important position right now.

6. Since 2022, Riq Woolen’s rookie year, only 23 cornerbacks have had more than one season facing 50 targets and allowing below 58 percent completion percentage. Only four have had three such seasons. Only one has had four. That’s Woolen, who has allowed 51.5, 57.7, 52.9 and 54.2 percent completion percentage in his four NFL seasons. 

7A. On the subject of free agent corners, Rasul Douglas had another effective season in 2025, allowing a 54.5 completion percentage, a 73.0 passer rating, 10.2 yards per completion and 5.6 yards per target. Among 73 corners targeted at least 50 times, he ranked 17^th in completion percentage, 10^th in passer rating, 18^th in yards per completion and 11^th in yards per target. His Pro Football Focus grade of 72.7 ranked 24^th of 98 corners who played at least 250 pass coverage snaps in 2025. Yet he can’t get a job. Douglas, the Eagles’ 3^rd-round pick in 2017, has never been a star but he’s always been a solid player – smart, durable, physical, productive – yet he’s played for six teams in nine year and never seems to be able to find a permanent home. Douglas had two INTs last year and has 21 in his career, most by a corner drafted by the Eagles since Sheldon Brown had 26 from 2002 through 2012. I can’t imagine he’s trying to break the bank at 30 years old and bouncing around he way he has, but so far nobody has signed him and you never hear his name when the top free agent corners are discussed. But he’s a good solid player and he’ll be playing somewhere this year. And playing well.

7B. Other than Douglas and Brown, the only corners the Eagles have ever drafted who’ve had 20 career interceptions are Irv Cross (22 from 1961 through 1969), Roynell Young (23 from 1981 through 1988), Mark McMillian (23 from 1992 through 1999), Joe Lavender (33 from 1973 through 1981) and Hall of Famer Eric Allen (54 from 1988 through 2001). 

8A. The Eagles’ newest edge rusher, free agent Arnold Ebiketie, has only 16 ½ sacks in four seasons as a 2^nd-round pick with the Falcons, and that’s pretty bad. But some of his other numbers are intriguing. He did have 17 tackles for loss, 41 quarterback hits, four forced fumbles and six pass breakups in addition to those sacks. And his pressure rate last year was 16.4 percent, which is pretty good. So he’s been fairly active. I still can’t help thinking this is Josh Uche / Azeez Ojulari redux but a much more expensive version. Maybe Ebiketie can be that third edge the Eagles desperately need in a rotation with Jalyx Hunt and Nolan Smith, and for $7 ½ million he better be. But I’d still like to see Howie draft an edge somewhere along the way. I trust him more to find an effective third edge in the draft than free agency.

9. Randall Cunningham doesn’t get enough credit for his magical 1990 season. He threw for 3,466 yards that year with 30 touchdown passes and ran for 942 yards. It would be 29 years before any other quarterback threw 30 touchdown passes and ran for 900 yards in a season, and that was Lamar Jackson in 2019. There have been so many elite QBs who can run and throw – Josh Allen, Michael Vick, Russell Wilson, Cam Newtown, Deshaun Watson, Jayden Daniels and so on – but to this day, Cunningham and Jackson are the only QBs with 30 TD passes and 900 rushing yards in a season. And it took the rest of the league three decades to catch up to 12. Randall actually had three straight seasons with 600 rushing yards and 20 TD passes – 1988, 1989 and 1990 – and nobody else in NFL history has done that. And only Jalen Hurts, Allen and Jackson have had two in a row. 

9B. Four Eagles QBs have had at least one season with 20 TD passes and 600 rushing yards – Randall in 1988, 1989 and 1990, Donovan McNabb in 2000,  Vick in 2010 and Hurt in 2022 and 2023. The only other team with more than QB to hit those benchmarks in a season is Washington, with Robert Griffin III in 2012 and Daniels in 2024.

10. The Eagles have drafted seven edge rushers or defensive ends in the first round since sacks became an official stat in 1982 and none of them has ever had 12 sacks in a season. Here’s a look at that group and their single-season sack high: Mike Mamula, 7^th pick in 1995 (8 ½), Jon Harris, 25^th pick in 1997 (1), Jerome McDougle, 15^th pick in 2003 (2.0), Brandon Graham, 13^th pick in 2010 (11), Marcus Smith, 26^th pick in 2014 (2 ½), Derek Barnett, 14^th pick in 2017 (6 ½) and Nolan Smith, 30^th pick in 2003 (6 ½). Their career totals as Eagles: Graham (79 ½), Barnett (34.0), Mamula (31 ½), Nolan Smith (10 ½), Marcus Smith (6 ½), McDougle (3.0) and Harris (2.0).