Eagles Are In A Holding Pattern With A.J. Brown

The only thing that’s changed in the week leading up to the Super Bowl is that Brown is doing his part en route to the end game with the situation remaining unresolved.

The idea that there have been no trade talks to date with Brown should be couched with the sentiment of 'Why would there be?' 

Why Would There Be Trade Talks?

Especially with the Eagles dealing with significant coaching staff turnover, which has been priority No. 1 at the NovaCare Complex over the past few weeks.

If there are no substantive conversations about moving Brown around the NFL Scouting Combine at the end of the month, that does become very relevant and a good indication that the two sides have agreed on trying to running it back for at least another season with a new offensive coordinator in Sean Mannion being tasked with a makeover of what was a stale and often predictable passing offense that has frustrated Brown pretty consistently over the past two seasons.

For now, it’s the same holding pattern, understanding it would be difficult to trade Brown without a post-June 1 designation due to a massive $43.5 million dead-money charge, which in turn, makes it far more difficult to garner the kind of immediate compensation the Eagles would want.

To be fair NFL Media's Mike Garafolo did add in the context which often gets lost in the sauce to the aggregation headlines.

"One, there’s been no trade talks yet between the Eagles and some other teams. And there’s been only brief talks with Brown’s camp from the team," the reporter explained. "We do expect that to pick up around the scouting combine, which is only two weeks away."

Brown does seem to be in a better mindset, however, which is often the case when players get away from the grind and recharge the batteries.

"Everyone says A.J. Brown right now is in a good space and, just in my time talking to him briefly, I got the sense that he was much more at peace and much more calm about things," Garafolo noted. "Maybe removing himself from the emotion of the situation [helped]. If they trade him, it’ll be a $43.5 million cap hit, so they’ll want some significant compensation back if it gets to that.”

In other words, nothing has changed.