The Tennessee Titans stunned their fan base, and the NFL world as a whole, on Day 1 of the 2022 NFL draft after trading wide receiver A.J. Brown to the Philadelphia Eagles in exchange for a pair of draft picks.
One of those acquired picks — No. 18 overall — was used to select Brown’s replacement, wide receiver Treylon Burks. The other — No. 101 overall — was flipped in a deal with the New York Jets that also involved Tennessee’s No. 26 overall pick. In return, Tennessee received pick Nos. 35, 69 and 163.
While Vrabel said all the right things following the trade of Brown, a video of the Titans’ war room right after the trade and pick was made appeared to show Tennessee’s head coach looking at least somewhat frustrated.
Damn AJ BROWN!? Coach did not look happy either…smh pic.twitter.com/G6LlqrxJaT
— David Bacon Bennett (@4im) April 29, 2022
We feel you, Vrabes.
“I love all of our players – I love A.J. personally,” Vrabel said. “I know how Jon feels about him. But I am very comfortable with how this went down and how Jon and I were able to navigate. I try to support him and make decisions. Unfortunately, we understand if we are going to be here a while, we are not going to be able to keep every single player that we draft and develop.”
In the same presser, general manager Jon Robinson made it clear the two sides were too far apart money-wise to get something done.
“We really appreciate what A.J. has done here for our football team, on the field and in the community,” Robinson said. “We had discussions back and forth and we realized we got to the point where it was going to be hard to get a deal done. So, the trade thing kind of manifested.”
The Titans were offering $20 million per year, and Brown ended up getting $25 million per over four years upon being traded to the Eagles. Now we’ll wait to see how things play out in order to truly know if dealing Brown was the right decision, but it feels like a terrible one from the jump.
