The building of a championship team comes in a variety of directions.
One of those can be a key trade, like when the Philadelphia Eagles pulled off a deal with the Tennessee Titans in 2022 to get A.J. Brown.
In a new article Thursday, ESPN's Bill Barnwell called that deal a "huge win" for the Eagles.
It has certainly aged quite well for the folks in Philadelphia.
The Eagles got Brown for first- and third-round picks in that year's draft that turned into Treylon Burks and Nicholas Petit-Frere.
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Maybe if the Titans had nailed those selections, this would've been viewed differently. But they didn't.
All because Brown didn't get the contract offer he wanted.
"The Titans didn't think the wide receiver market was going to spike," Barnwell writes. "Brown holds that he would have signed with the Titans if they had offered him an extension worth $22 million per season. Reports in 2022 suggested that the offer to Brown from Titans general manager Jon Robinson topped out at $16 million per year, with potential incentives taking the deal to $20 million annually."
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And while Brown became a star, it cost jobs in Tennessee.
"Burks never really settled as a pro, with injuries limiting him to 699 receiving yards over his first three seasons in Tennessee before he fractured his collarbone in training camp, ending what will likely be his final year with the Titans," Barnwell writes. "Given a larger role, Brown delivered on his per-route promise from Tennessee and broke out with the Eagles, posting back-to-back 1,450-yard campaigns in his first two years with Philadelphia. Robinson didn't read the coming rise in the wide receiver market correctly. Paying $22 million per year for Brown would have been a bargain for the Tennessee version, let alone the guy Brown became in Philadelphia. And two days after Brown caught eight passes for 119 yards and two touchdowns in his first game against the Titans, Tennessee fired Robinson."
And yeah, the Eagles have a Lombardi Trophy to show for it, too.
Not a bad deal at all for Philly's front office.
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