A.J. Brown spent day one at the Patriots’ joint practice hugging every Eagle he used to call a teammate except one: a big embrace for Saquon Barkley, a hug for backup quarterback Tanner McKee, a dap for Britain Covey, a fist bump for head coach Nick Sirianni. The guy he skipped was Jalen Hurts, his old quarterback, the man Brown reportedly used to consider his best friend.
By day two, Brown finally walked over. Eagles beat reporter Eliot Shorr-Parks caught it happening in real time:
https://twitter.com/EliotShorrParks/status/2090478493310005563
Twenty-four hours of nothing, then a hug. That’s not an accident. That’s a receiver working on his own schedule.
Brown got traded from the Eagles to New England back in June for a 2028 first-round pick and a 2027 fifth, the childhood-team reunion he’d been chasing for seven years, four years and a Super Bowl after he first showed up in Philadelphia. He caught nearly every ball thrown his way in team drills on day one anyway — enough that Quinyon Mitchell, the corner who used to talk trash with him in practice every week, came away saying Brown looked “better” and “faster” than before.
Meanwhile, Hurts was busy throwing the ball to the wrong team.
Hurts threw five picks in two days against his old teammate’s new team, three on day one and two more on day two, and Marcus Jones turned one of them into a toe-tap sideline interception that’s going to be running on a loop on Boston sports radio for a week. Brown, for his part, cooled off a little on day two (two catches on five targets from Drake Maye, exactly the receiver Maye’s been missing since he arrived), but one of them was a touchdown tucked into the back corner of the end zone, and two of Maye’s interceptions that day came on balls meant for Brown, not off his hands. Blame the quarterback for those, not the receiver who spent day one pretending his old quarterback wasn’t in the building.
All of that “love” talk, by the way, came from day one, before either of them had actually walked over to the other. When somebody worked up the nerve to ask Hurts about it directly, he didn’t dress it up: “No, I didn’t get to yet,” he said, before adding the standard-issue disclaimer, “I’ve got a lot of love for him. I always have.” Brown said almost the same thing: “It’s love, man. I know I’m on the opposing team right now, but I still felt some love.” When a reporter pushed for more, Brown shut the door entirely: “None of that stuff even matters. I think you all should want to report something positive.” Neither guy backed it up with anything besides words.
Fine, the hug happened, so maybe it really was love the whole time. But the timing tells on both of them — it lands exactly when Brown’s already up two days of tape and Hurts is sitting on five interceptions. If Brown wanted peace, he had all of day one to make it. He waited until after.
I hate the Patriots and I hate the Eagles on principle (full Jets fan, no horse in this particular preseason race), but even I can read a room, and for a full day Hurts was the only person standing in it that Brown wouldn’t walk toward.
Brown wasn’t done making noise on the field either. A Patriots account posted the running joke building around him and Quinyon Mitchell specifically:
https://twitter.com/LosTalksPats/status/2090453372109533241
The two teams close out this preseason series Saturday. The Eagles building has spent camp finding new ways to compliment Hurts, which is worth remembering the next time somebody tells you tape doesn’t lie.
Hurts was also asked if he had any advice for Maye heading into his first real season under center in New England. His answer says more about where his head’s at than anything involving Brown: “I think Drake has had a lot of success already, so I don’t know what my advice would do.” Deflecting on the guy who inherited his old rival’s building. He’ll hug you after practice. In front of a microphone, apparently, you don’t exist.
