Drama was brewing for the Philadelphia Eagles this week, despite the team sitting at 11-2 on the season and riding a nine-game winning streak.
After the Eagles squeaked by with three wins over the Carolina Panthers 22-16 last Sunday, star receiver AJ Brown told reporters that “the transition” was the reason the offense wasn’t clicking as expected.
Defensive end Brandon Graham then added fuel to the fire by saying Brown and quarterback Jalen Hurts aren’t as close as they once were.
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Highlights from Carolina Panthers vs. Philadelphia Eagles in Week 14 of the NFL season.
“They used to be friends but things have changed and I understand that because life happens,” Graham said, before trying to reframe his stance and apologize to both players for “assuming it was something It wasn’t.”
Brown, coming off back-to-back 1,000-yard receiving seasons but being held to just 109 yards in the past two games, isn’t necessarily wrong in his assessment of the passing game’s recent stagnation.
Hurts, who signed a $179.3 million guaranteed extension before the 2023 season, has thrown for less than 200 yards in three straight games.
But Sky Sports’ Pheobe Schecter, talking about the latter Inside The Huddle Podcastcalled on the Browns and the Eagles to be more “selfless” in their pursuit of the Super Bowl and avoid the same kind of collapse they suffered last season when they lost six of their last seven in the playoffs.
“AJ Brown comes out and says the problem is the pass, you look at your quarterback completely and throw him under the bus,” Schecter said of the three-time Pro Bowler’s comments.
“And then Brandon Graham came in and talked about them not being on the same level, only to retract his statement.
“That’s what we saw from the Eagles at the end of last year, but things were going bad for them at that point … they were losing. That’s not what you do when you’re a winning team.
“I understand that receivers want to touch the ball as much as possible, but if you’re going to be a team that’s going to be in the Super Bowl, there can’t be an ‘I’ in that situation. You can’t be unselfish.
“Last year, I realized it was a different story. he was touched a lot, like he was with the (Tennessee) Titans; he was basically their only weapon.
“But of course if you win, it’s good for everybody.”
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Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley’s best game so far of the 2024 NFL season.
The addition of star Saquon Barkley in the offseason is likely contributing to Brown’s frustrations.
The former New York Giants player leads the NFL in rushing with 1,623 yards, 216 yards ahead of Baltimore Ravens’ Derrick Henry, and could surpass Eric Dickerson’s 40-year-old record for rushing in a season (2,105 in 1984) with more yards in the final four games of the season. :
Barkley will continue his record-setting bid for the Eagles’ 10th straight victory as they host the similarly 10-3 Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday.
Catch another NFL triple-header this Sunday on Sky Sports, starting with Miami Dolphins at Houston Texans at 6pm.
