Months before wide receiver A.J. Brown and quarterback Jalen Hurts helped the Philadelphia Eagles win Super Bowl LIX, they found themselves in December headlines after defensive end Brandon Graham said the two “were friends, but things have changed.”
During a recent appearance on the “Million Dollaz Worth of Game” podcast, Brown spoke openly about his relationship with Hurts.
“I’d be sitting up here lying telling you we never had any issues,” Brown explained, as shared by Eva Geitheim of Sports Illustrated. “We’re two alphas who want to be the best and demand greatness from each other and everyone around us. Some reports are true, some reports aren’t. But me and him are good, man. We just wanna be great. We push each other, and sometimes we bump heads, but that’s normal. And don’t nobody sweat it.”
Before Graham made what understandably became a much-discussed comment, Brown seemed to criticize Hurts after the quarterback passed for just 108 yards in Philadelphia’s 22-16 win over the Carolina Panthers that improved the Eagles to 11-2 on the season.
Graham later indicated he misspoke and “assumed that (the Brown-Hurts situation) was something that it wasn’t,” and everybody else in the locker room seemed to put the story behind them as Philadelphia ended Week 18 at 14-3 before the NFC East side comfortably cruised to a blowout win over the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LIX.
However, Brown once again raised eyebrows when he wrote in a social-media post that his happiness over earning a championship ring was “short-lived.” Per Jamie Gordon of talkSport, Brown addressed that comment while speaking on the “Kickin’ It With Dee” podcast.
“I wrote the post and it was just like, it wasn’t fulfilling,” Brown said. “It didn’t do anything for me. It didn’t do a lot for me that I thought. … Even watching people win Super Bowls, I’m like, ‘Oh they’re happy, they’re celebrating in the locker room, drinking and stuff.’ I’m just like, ‘Okay, alright that’s how I supposed to feel.’ And I’m in the locker room after we win… I’m trying to feel how I pictured it, you know what I’m saying? My expectations of it. And I was totally wrong. I even sat down in the locker room for a second ‘cause I got tipsy ‘cause I don’t drink… I was just like, ‘Man, this is cool but I’m ready to go.'”
Brown suggested during the “Million Dollaz Worth of Game” chat that any supposed drama between the receiver and Hurts was “magnified times 10.” That’s all well and good coming off a championship parade, but it could be interesting to see if Brown and Hurts are reading from the same book come September.
