June 7, 2026
For smart Eagles fans, the past two months have been like watching a fatal car accident in slow motion. You knew GM Howie Roseman was going to admit defeat and trade the best wide receiver in Eagles history, A.J. Brown, to New England. You just knew it.
A few minutes after 4 p.m. on June 1, the crash finally happened. Brown is reuniting with his ex-coach, Mike Vrabel, in New England. The Eagles got back. . . . does it even really matter?
If you have a team that had the best roster in the NFL a year ago but is showing age everywhere, and especially on its offensive line, a first-round pick in 2028 is not going to provide much relief. And a fifth-round selection next year? Roseman would have a better chance winning Powerball than finding another Brown with that pick.
No, this long-rumored trade was more about subtraction than addition. Brown has been unhappy because he’s A.J. Brown, a narcissist whose only real affiliation is to himself. At some point since the Super Bowl parade, Brown’s behavior in the clubhouse, on the sidelines and even in games was deemed a detriment to the team’s success.
At the risk of beating a dead horse, I must point out once again that clubhouse culture is supposedly the one major plus on head coach Nick Sirianni’s resume. So when is someone in the media – other than me – going to point out what an epic failure this is for him? Is anyone left among the writers and broadcasters with a backbone to speak an obvious truth?
OK, there’s no sense in belaboring the point. Let’s forget about life with Brown; those days are over here. Now we have to calculate the impact his departure will have on the current team.
If you can rationalize losing a wide receiver who was talented and durable enough to pass the 1,000-yard milestone all four seasons here, it’s time to make an appointment with your optometrist. You need a new prescription for your rose-colored glasses.
DeVonta Smith is a terrific No. 2 receiver, but how will his 170-pound body hold up against the best cornerbacks on every opponent? And who’s going to catch the ball when Smith is smothered in double coverage?
Roseman brought in a small army of receivers to fill at least part of the breach. Good luck with that. The first-rounder he is so effusive about, Makai Lemon of USC, is shorter than Smith, with zero track record in the NFL, and is already hurt. The rest of the new receivers are named Faith, Hope and Wishful Thinking.
The most telling part of the Brown trade is the fact that the Eagles were willing to kick the can down the road two seasons before getting any real value out of him. The only thing lacking when the Eagles announced the deal was a concession speech about this season.
Since there are few, if any, dissenting voices left in the Philadelphia sports media, here’s a harsh dose of reality:
The Eagles just lost one of their biggest weapons in the pass game, they recently ran off the best line coach in team history, Jeff Stoutland, and the new offensive coordinator, Sean Mannion, has never called a play. Yeah, the offense should be much better this season. Sure.
Despite the undeniable savvy of defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, he is going to be asked for another miracle this season, with eight of the 11 starters from his Super Bowl unit now gone. Good luck with that, too.
And then you have the head coach, whose 65-30 record belies his dubious contribution to the offense, his embarrassing sideline demeanor and his increasingly questionable late-game strategies. Now, apparently, he’s struggling at clubhouse chemistry, too.
If anything good comes out of this major step back, maybe, finally, the focus will turn to Nick Sirianni. It should start with this basic question: What does he do well?
I used a word at the beginning of this post that may have seemed extreme when you read it, but it was chosen with care.
The fatal car accident we have been witnessing that led to the Brown trade was, at least to me, the death knell for a terrific era of Eagles football. It’s all downhill from here, kids.
Think about it. The ascension of the Rams and Packers – both NFC rivals who have had far better off-seasons than the Eagles – widens the gap between the teams, no? And the Niners beat the Eagles in the playoffs despite losing half their roster to injury. Aren’t they a smarter bet now, too?
The Brown trade will be seen, years from now, as the official end of an era that brought two trips to the Super Bowl, and one parade.
It will also represent one of the worst decisions in the Hall of Fame career of Howie Roseman. Bet on it.
I’m sorry to report such sad news, but this era of great Eagles football is officially dead.
In lieu of flowers, please donate all of your No. 11 Eagles jerseys to Goodwill.
Sorry for your loss.
I had a big laugh last week when a face from the past suddenly popped onto my TV screen.
Is that . . . . don’t tell me . . . . OMG, it’s Matt Klentak, the former Phillies GM, taking a bow for the ascension of ace Christopher Sanchez.
The man in charge from 2015 to 2020 is now a special assistant with the Milwaukee Brewers, but there he was offering his insights into the trade he made in 2019 that brought Sanchez to Philly for somebody named Curtis Mead. The fantastic lefthander was in the midst of an extraordinary run of 50 2/3 scoreless innings. He is the consensus pick, at least so far, for the NL Cy Young Award this season.
So why did I laugh? Well, even at my advanced age, I remember the many whiffs in Klentak’s torturous reign, all of which were forgotten during his self-congratulatory tour last week. Do the names Mickey Moniak, Jake Arrieta, Odubel Herrera, Scott Kingery, Carlos Santana and many, many other expensive busts ring a bell?
There is a movement afoot now to change the narrative on Klentak’s tenure here because the team has been a contender the past four seasons and because Sanchez became one of the best pitchers in baseball
Sorry, I will be sitting this movement out.
Klentak was a dreadful GM, and I can prove it.
For the past six years, he has not received another GM job, and he has been mentioned in exactly zero GM hunts. His name is off the radar, despite the Sanchez miracle.
If Matt Klentak is some kind of unsung hero, why has no other team even considered hiring him to run their front office?
Because he sucked here, that’s why.
Some other negative thoughts. . . .
- Whenever I think of Matt Klentak, invariably the next name that pops into my head is his boss from 2015-20, president Andy MacPhail. Remember a decade ago when the former champion GM was going to come in and set the Phillies back onto a path to the World Series? Well, if you can recall that, surely you also remember the epic moment when MacPhail lost an entire city. He was asked about his team’s chances of making the playoffs in 2019, and he replied: “If we don’t, we don’t.” They didn’t, and MacPhail was soon embarking on an overdue retirement that continues to this day. Lots of successful people came to Philly and flopped, but I can think of none who connected less with the fans than the pompous, overrated team-builder. Klentak resurfacing last week brought back some awful memories.
- It is never my intention to be annoying, but here goes: Part of me is rooting for the Knicks during their incredible run to an NBA title. I know, I know. You can’t root for a New York team if you care about Philly sports. I get it. But isn’t the Knicks’ success further proof of how stupid The Process was? The Knicks didn’t tank four seasons the way the Sixers did. They kept trying to compete until they found the right formula. And that right formula was stealing the DNA of Villanova basketball by amassing as many champion Wildcats as they could, starting with Jalen Brunson. The Sixers had the perfect winning formula playing out every day in their own city, and instead they concocted a tanking plan that won them absolutely nothing. I’m sorry but there’s some justice in the success this year of the Knicks.
- And by the way, can we now close the book on the annoying and unsuccessful three-year tenure of the weirdest GM in Philadelphia sports history, Sam Hinkie? The Process never got the Sixers into the Eastern Conference finals, his inaccessibility in times of crisis was legendary, and who can ever forget that 13-page resignation letter? There are still people in our city who revere Hinkie, even though he has pretty much ghosted the world since his departure a decade ago. You can apply the same logic to Hinkie as we just did with Klentak. If he actually had any clue what he was doing, wouldn’t someone – anyone – offer him another chance to be a GM?
- OK, now I’m going to be a real party-pooper. I could not possibly care less about the overhyped World Cup matches about to take over our city for the next three weeks. It’s hard for me to imagine anyone here paying the lowest price available on SeatGeek right now, $666, for that scintillating game between Cote d’Ivoire and Equador next Sunday at the Linc. Not only do I have zero interest in international soccer, but my apathy only grows when I don’t even know one of the countries competing. Who/what the heck is Cote d’Ivoire?
- Don Mattingly may be the most boring manager ever to hold a news conference in Philadelphia, but I will take him every day over his predecessor, Rob Thomson. Listen closely to Mattingly after a game, and you will hear – gasp! – the actual truth about what he’s thinking. No, he doesn’t publicly criticize players. But no, he also doesn’t shamelessly kiss the ass of every player on the team the way Thomson did. And rather than spouting analytics at every opportunity, Mattingly speaks in a language the fans can understand, even if it often makes you drowsy. Thomson managed four years here with nary a word of media dissent (other than mine.) So I ask you, have you heard anyone, anywhere, say “I miss Rob Thomson” since he left? Of course not. Because no one does.