Eagles Continue Reshaping Roster By Reportedly Releasing Veteran Wide Receiver

Eagles continue reshaping roster by reportedly releasing veteran wide receiver originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Hollywood Brown’s brief and odd Eagles career is over after four games and five catches.

The Eagles are releasing Brown by mutual consent of the player and the team, Jordan Schultz of the Scultz Report posted on social media Thursday night.

The Eagles signed Brown to a one-year, $5 million contract in March with the expectation that he’d be a significant part of the Eagles’ passing game following the departure of A.J. Brown. But even with Brown gone and DeVonta Smith and Dontayvion Wicks both hurt much of the season, Brown has been an afterthought.

He’s only played in four of the Eagles’ nine games, getting nine targets and catching five passes for 63 yards along with two rushing attempts for 12 yards. His longest catch was a 19-yarder from Tanner McKee in the loss to the Cowboys. He had a season-high 30 yards in that game.

Brown expressed frustration with his limited role in a recent conversation with NBC Sports Philadelphia:

“Of course, you want to be somewhere where you play, but at the ultimate end of the day, it’s not my plan. So I might want to play, I might want to contribute, but if that’s not the plan for me, I can’t dwell on it too much or you’ll be unhappy. And then you’re taking that back home. I can’t take that back home to the wife and kids. So I gotta try to stay as positive as I can.”

Asked how that was going, he laughed and said, “Some days better than others.”

He added: “We’re all dealing with something and we’re dealing with something as a team. So I don’t wanna add that extra stress.”

Brown said he expected to play more but was dealing with it because he didn’t want to put personal issues ahead of team needs.

“I did (expect a bigger role), but I do understand stuff happens,” he said. “I mean, you can’t take anything personal in this business, so you kind of just got to go about your process and when that time happens, whatever happens, you’ve just got to be ready for it.”

Brown, a 1st-round pick in 2019, had a 1,000-yard season for the Ravens in 2021 and over 700 yards in both 2020 and 2022. He was 49-for-587 with five touchdowns last year. In his career, he has 378 catches for 4,385 yards and 33 touchdowns.

The Eagles, 2-7, have lost seven straight game. Their offense is ranked 32nd in the NFL in yards per game, 30th in points per game and 29th in passing yards per game.

With Brown no longer on the roster, the Eagles have rookie 1st-round pick Makai Lemon, 2nd-year undrafted free agent Darius Cooper and Elijah Moore as healthy wide receivers. Smith and Wicks have both missed the last two games but could be back after the bye week.

Lemon is the Eagles’ leading receiver with 37-for-312 and a touchdown and Smith (26-310-2), Wicks (19-284-1) and Cooper (13-200-4) are next.

The Eagles have two WRs on the practice squad – Erik Ezukanma and Xavier Gipson.

Because it’s after the trade deadline, Brown is subject to the waiver claim process despite being a vested veteran with seven years of pension credit.