• Poor playoff showing ends a down year: A.J. Brown’s season-worst 53.1 overall PFF grade from Sunday dragged his final season grade down from 83.0 to 80.9 — officially declaring 2025 as the lowest graded season of his seven-year NFL career.
• Next step: It’s looking increasingly likely that he could demand a trade this offseason, but the Eagles would be left with a gnarly dead cap hit of $20 million, which their veteran roster will struggle to find room for. 
• Get PFF+ for 30% off: Use promo code HOLIDAY30 to unlock the PFF Player Prop Tool, Premium Stats, fantasy dashboards, the PFF Mock Draft Simulator, industry-leading fantasy rankings and much more — everything you need to win your season.

Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

A.J. Brown’s season-long frustrations with the Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive coaching staff came to a head during Sunday’s playoff exit at home to the San Francisco 49ers. 

Brown’s face-to-face altercation with Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni was the latest in a long-running saga that has been a thorn in the side of the defending Super Bowl champions all season. 

Sirianni later revealed the heated moment occurred after he felt his star receiver was slow to get off the field prior to a fourth-down punt. While Brown declined to speak with the media after the game, it doesn’t take a football philosopher to estimate that Brown’s frustrations were rooted in Philadelphia’s uninspiring offensive performance up until that point. 

It was an accurate snapshot of the Philadelphia Eagles’ season as a whole. After Brown failed to accumulate over 50 receiving yards in six of his first nine games this season, the Eagles eventually found time to appease their frustrated superstar, who rattled off three straight 100-yard receiving games around late November and early December. 

Despite his expanded role, question marks remained around Philadelphia’s offensive scheme. Offensive coordinator Kevin Patullo seemed content to strip away any complexity that made last season’s Eagles so potent, and instead he banked on his offense to win thanks to their sheer talent — which it did, 11 times out of 18. 

Yet, as a byproduct of Philadelphia’s simplistic style, arguably the most talented weapon in their arsenal often felt completely isolated from the game plan. That was apparent once again against the 49ers. 

Sunday marked Brown’s sixth game of the season with 1.0 or fewer yards per route run. He never had more than three such outings in any of the previous five seasons. 

Brown’s season-worst 53.1 overall PFF grade from Sunday dragged his final season grade down from 83.0 to 80.9 — officially declaring 2025 as the lowest graded season of his seven-year NFL career.

As Sunday’s grade suggests, Brown did not exactly help his own case for more targets in Philadelphia’s playoff exit when you consider he dropped two of his five catchable targets. It marked just the second multi-drop game of Brown’s Eagles tenure — both of which occurred in the playoffs.

Brown’s fourth-quarter drop on a pivotal third-and-5 when down by four points rendered him without a second-half reception for the fifth time this season. That is the same amount as the combined totals of Ja’Marr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Puka Nacua, Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Amon-Ra St. Brown, CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens.

When one of the highest-paid wide receivers in the NFL has less than 30 receiving yards in a game, you often have a problem on your hands. 

The 10 highest-earning receivers in 2025 combined for just 17 total games this season with fewer than 30 receiving yards. Of those 17 games, A.J. Brown accounted for five, capped off by his 25-yard display on Sunday. 

This is uncharted territory for a wide receiver earning $32 million per year. That same contract may now be Brown’s biggest enemy. It’s looking increasingly likely that he could demand a trade this offseason, but the Eagles would be left with a gnarly dead cap hit of $20 million, which their veteran roster will struggle to find room for. 

While Brown’s frustrations are clear for the world to see, any indication of how severe the relationship is from the Eagles’ perspective is still guesswork. 

If Philadelphia were to move in another direction, almost certainly via trade, their next issue is that there’s not exactly a top 2026 draft prospect or impending free agent who profiles remotely similarly to Brown, 32-year-old Mike Evans may be the exception.

The Tennessee Titans were the last team that attempted to recreate Brown’s production, and they whiffed badly when they drafted Treylon Burks 18th overall back in 2022. Burks has yet to amass 1,000 yards as an NFL receiver. 

While I wouldn’t quite proclaim that A.J. Brown is “one-of-one” as a receiving talent, the reality is that his combination of power and finesse is not easily evaluated in the draft process. 

An offensive coaching change, in particular a fresh face calling plays, may be enough to convince Brown to give Philadelphia another chance. He is likely not the only Eagles player frustrated with the lack of structure or rhythm to Philadelphia’s almost random assortment of play calls. 

It often feels like the Eagles do little to expose their opponent. Wild-card weekend displayed countless examples of crafty coordinators attacking weaknesses in opposing defenses, like Matt LaFleur’s persistent targeting of banged-up Chicago Bears CB Kyler Gordon and Dave Canales calling a barrage of passes into the area of Los Angeles Rams safety Quentin Lake, who missed the last two months with injury. 

The Eagles, on the other hand, posed very few questions for the 49ers defense, which looked susceptible heading into this game, allowing a 106.5 passer rating over the final six weeks of the regular season. 

Whether or not change is imminent in Philadelphia, the A.J. Brown situation is undoubtedly their biggest question mark heading into the offseason. 

While it’s unfair to classify an eleven-win season with a division title as a “Super Bowl hangover,” the Eagles will rue the opportunity they had to go back-to-back in one of the most wide-open playoff fields in recent memory.