NFL Insider Tom Pelissero: The Eagles Have a 1-Team Trade Market for AJ Brown

Tom Pelissero did not bury the lede. The Eagles wide receiver room, as currently constructed, screams that AJ Brown is on his way out. The NFL Network insider told The Rich Eisen Show as much, then laid out exactly how the deal is most likely to come together.

The target market is not a mystery. Pelissero said the trade signs all point toward New England, with a likely move date of June 2nd. There have been real conversations, just not recently. Rewind to February and March, he said, and there were a lot of trade talks involving multiple teams and AJ Brown. The Patriots were one of them. Once the Rams pivoted in another direction, New England became the name with all the arrows pointing in its favor.

The holdup, then and now, is price.

"Howie has wanted a first-round pick and more," Pelissero said, "just like what he gave up for AJ Brown when he acquired him" four years ago. At the time, Pelissero added, the Patriots were not offering a first. They specifically did not offer pick number 31. That gap is where the deal has been sitting.

Rich pressed on whether Brown could realistically come back into a room that already includes Marquise Brown, Hollywood Brown, and Dontavian Wicks. Pelissero allowed that anything is possible. He just does not see it as likely. The conversation now, he said, is about fair compensation.

For a parallel, he reached for Aaron Rodgers. When the Packers were trading the quarterback to the Jets, Rodgers had narrowed the destination to one team. That collapsed Green Bay's leverage in a familiar way. Joe Douglas and Brian Gutekunst had to grind through a trade structure with only one realistic dance partner. The pressure point that broke the standoff was the draft itself. The Packers eventually moved up two spots and the deal got done.

The AJ Brown situation has a similar texture. Pelissero called it a one-team market. Both sides hold leverage. The Patriots want Brown in the building sooner rather than later, especially for an offense and a young quarterback that needs the help. The Eagles want compensation that matches what they paid in the first place, and they have time. The pick in question would land in the 2027 draft, so Howie Roseman is not facing a clock that forces him to move.

Pelissero was careful on one point. Could a deal already be in place. Roseman, he said, would not be allowed to confirm it even if it were. That would be cap circumvention. The league does not let teams hold trades solely for cap purposes. So the public version is the slow-burn version, regardless of what conversations are or are not happening.

The outcome Pelissero painted is one where everyone in the league more or less knows what this is going to take. The only question is whether it gets there a month from now.