A.J. Brown said there is no bad blood with Jalen Hurts, but he also said the two have drifted apart since their days together in Philadelphia. In his first interview after his long-anticipated trade to New England, Brown made clear that whatever people read into the pair’s bond was not a personal feud.
Brown told’s Maria Taylor that he was not concerned with being cast as the villain, adding that nothing he ever said was for his own gain. He said everything was meant to help the team win and become better, and described the relationship with Hurts as something that simply changed over time. The timing matters because this was Brown’s first public chance to address a topic that had shadowed his time with the Eagles and followed him into the move to New England.
He also said the split in closeness did not come from a single blowup. Brown said nothing happened between him and Hurts, that they still competed and pushed each other, and that both sides accepted they were not as close as they had been a couple years earlier. His own words left little room for the kind of locker-room drama fans had speculated about for months: there was no falling-out, only distance.
That distance is easier to understand in the context of Brown’s run in Philadelphia. He arrived in a 2022 trade, played four seasons with the Eagles, made three All-Pro teams and won Super Bowl LIX, but his time there was also marked by frequent complaints about the offense and a relationship with Hurts that appeared to deteriorate. Brown said he still loves Hurts, wants him to do well and has nothing but love for him, even as he acknowledged the friendship is no longer what it was.
Brown even framed the choice of teams as personal, not performative. He said he had kept a Patriots rug in his home for a few years and that New England had been his team since he was a kid. For now, the unresolved piece is not whether the two men are at war — Brown answered that plainly — but what, exactly, made a once-close bond fade without a single moment anyone could point to.
