Now that the 4 seasons with superstar wide receiver A.J. Brown are in the rearview mirror, Philadelphia Eagles fans, how are you feeling?
Probably not great, right? Which is strange because, with Brown on the roster, the Eagles played in 2 Super Bowls, won 1, and were in the playoffs each year.
Brown put up numbers that made him a no-brainer, Top 5 NFL wide receiver the entirety of his time in Philly — numbers that also made it so the Eagles were able to get a 2028 1st-round pick in return when they traded him to the New England Patriots on Monday.
Behind all of that, however, is the reason Brown got traded in the 1st place. He was a terrible teammate, complained constantly while they were winning, and a string of bizarre behavior on and off the field made having him on the team a constant headache.
It’s also why The Ringer’s Bill Simmons — a lifetime Patriots fan — felt the need to address his muted reaction to the trade on an earlier podcast this week and, perhaps, laid out the most compelling reasons why Patriots fans shouldn’t be too over the moon about landing Brown.
Bill Simmons Built Career on Boston Fandom
Simmons, 56, is the creator of the wide-ranging Ringer Podcast Network and has built an empire of podcasts around sports and pop culture. He started his career as “The Boston Sports Guy” on AOL, then became a star writing for ESPN before leaving to create The Ringer, where he hosts “The Bill Simmons Podcast” and “The Rewatchables” among other hit podcasts.
Part of his appeal, from the start, has been his unabashed fandom for his hometown teams. For Simmons, that’s been mainly the Boston Celtics and the Patriots, who began their Super Bowl dynasty era right as Simmons’ career was taking off in the early 2000s.
“The reason I didn’t seem more excited (about the trade) is I’m not positive why (Brown’s) production dipped the last couple of years,” Simmons said on Wednesday night. “There’s been a lot of good dialogue and a lot of good stats about this, about when he was at Tennessee, he was the middle a lot more. At Philly, he wasn’t. They basically just used him on the sides. Yet all the stuff with the man-to-man stats with him, he’s like either he’s the best receiver or one of the best receivers at just being able to get open and just being able to catch balls in traffic … the question for me is did he just lose the will to live as a receiver by like 5 percent, especially last year after they won the Super Bowl, because he wasn’t being used in the way he would have loved?
“Ultimately, these guys have to be inherently selfish to be great receivers. He’s just like ‘I’m here. I’m a racecar. I’m in the driveway. Please use me. Take me on the highway.’ … will it be (Randy) Moss in 2007 all over again or do you get a little worried that the Eagles, who have been a step ahead of everybody for really the last 9 or 10 years, who are selling high on a guy that they traded for a 1st round pick a few a years ago, got a Super Bowl out of, then traded him for another 1st round pick … how much did they know? Did they think he was heading toward a different phase of his career?
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