PHILADELPHIA — The question was simple. A.J. Brown, the Eagles’ $100 million No. 1 receiver, understood all of its ramifications and implications.
Would injured free-agent receiver Odell Beckham Jr., a diva’s diva, fit in with the culture and chemistry that has helped the Eagles start the season 11-1? After all, malcontent running backs LeGarrette Blount and Jay Ajayi, preseason and deadline additions, nested nicely with the Birds during the Super Bowl run in the 2017 season.
“I think OBJ would be ... would be OK to be ... I mean, why not?” Brown told me.
He adjusted his hoodie. He smiled.
Why not? Because OBJ ain’t you. Because you’re two very different dudes.
Brown sighed.
“I know OBJ. I respect him. Personality-wise? He’s a good, cool person,” Brown said. “But, right now, I think we’re OK.”
That’s not exactly Dak Prescott’s “Make sure you have as many weapons as you can.” That’s not close to what CeeDee Lamb told Yahoo Sports: “I want him to join us. So we need that.”
I asked Brown about OBJ because of a profootballtalk.com tweet Wednesday morning in which PFT pointed out its previous prescience:
Last year, when the OBJ free-agency sputtered, we said, “Watch the Rams.” As this year’s OBJ free-agency sputters, I’ll say this: Watch the Eagles.
After being cut by Cleveland last fall, Beckham helped the Rams reach, then win, the Super Bowl. He had seven touchdown catches in 12 games. That includes the playoffs, when he caught two of those TD balls, one of them in the Super Bowl.
Eagles coach Nick Sirianni on Wednesday tried to quash the prospect of OBJ one day deplaning at PHL.
“Really happy with the room that we have. The best wideout room I’ve ever been a part of in the NFL,” Sirianni said. “We’ve had some good ones, and this is the best one we’ve had.”
In reply to an inquiry to general manager Howie Roseman as to whether the Eagles are, in fact, interested in OBJ, an Eagles spokesperson pointed to Sirianni’s response.
Cool.
But you know what Sirianni didn’t say?
“No. We do not have, and we do not expect to have, any interest in OBJ.”
As for the “best wideout room ever” claim, that’s a remarkable statement, considering Sirianni as the receivers coach of a 2017 Chargers squad that saw Keenan Allen catch 102 passes for 1,393 yards for the top-ranked passing offense in the NFL.
However, Sirianni proceeded to extol the virtues of players beyond Brown — second-year No. 2 receiver DeVonta Smith, speedster Quez Watkins, workhorse Zach Pascal, and even Britain Covey.
Covey is an undrafted free-agent kick returner who has been targeted zero times in his 14 offensive snaps. He’s also (allegedly) 5-foot-8 and 173 pounds, or about the same size as Howie Roseman.
It’s hard to imagine Roseman, given the choice between Covey and Beckham on the eve of an NFC championship game, saying:
“No thanks, Odell. I’m going with the guy I demoted to the practice squad three times this season.”
At least Covey’s healthy.
Beckham blew out his knee in the Super Bowl, and so he’s just 10 months removed from an injury that typically requires a full year of recovery time. He remains unemployed after visiting the Giants, Bills, and Cowboys, but he declined to work out for those teams.
Dallas owner Jerry Jones indicated on his radio show Tuesday that Beckham isn’t fully healthy.
Beckham didn’t appear to appreciate Jones’ comments. Around midday Wednesday, Beckham tweeted an image of a black chess pawn.
Four hours later, again on his Twitter feed, he vowed to his 9-month-old son Zydn:
“I WILL return to greatness.”
In October, Beckham, who turned 30 a month ago, indicated that, wherever he lands, he is seeking a multiyear deal that will sunset his career.
That’s not happening in Philly. Brown and Smith will carry a combined salary-cap hit of about $80 million through the next three seasons. Anything more than a short-term, minimum, show-me deal for OBJ seems unlikely from the Eagles.
So, this all may come to nothing.
The players sound as if they’d like it that way.
“You look at this wide receiver room, there’s A.J. There’s DeVonta. But there’s no egos,” left tackle Jordan Mailata said.
Fair enough. But in 2017, both Ajayi and Blount brought egos and baggage, and the Eagles’ leaders shepherded them; players such as Darren Sproles, Malcolm Jenkins, and Brent Celek. The difference with this situation, said Mailata, is simple:
“OBJ would be the veteran in the receivers room.”
Beckham would be an accomplished veteran of eight NFL seasons, the first three of which saw him average 96 catches for 1,374 yards and almost 12 touchdowns for the Giants. Injuries have diminished his production since, and incidents have soiled his profile.
Beckham’s bizarre battle with Josh Norman in 2015 and his love-hate relationship with a kicking net in 2016 called into question his stability.
He took a crew of Giants on a boat ride before a playoff game in January of 2017 and mimed a dog urinating at Lincoln Financial Field in September of 2017. In 2019, he argued on the sideline with his Cleveland coach Freddie Kitchens, who later was fired. Beckham violated NCAA rules when he handed out cash in the LSU locker room after his alma mater won the national title in January of 2020. He was ultimately waived by the Browns in November of 2021.
Three days later, he joined the Rams and won a ring.
The Rams handled Beckham fine. If Beckham is ever foisted upon them, the Eagles would handle him, too, said Fletcher Cox.
“We let everyone who comes into this building know: The way we do things around here is the way we do things around here,” Cox said. “It starts with Howie, and trickles down to Sirianni, and he lets the players handle it.”
“There’s not a lot of character problems in this room,” Cox continued. “There could be a bunch of egos in here, but there’s not.”
It sure doesn’t sound like one particular ego will be in there.
For now.
