A.J. Brown breaks silence on relationship with Jalen Hurts after trade: "There's no bad blood"

A.J. Brown broke his silence on his relationship with Jalen Hurts one day after the Philadelphia Eagles traded the star wide receiver to the New England Patriots. 

Brown told NBC's Maria Taylor on the 7 PM in Brooklyn with Carmelo Anthony podcast that he and Hurts aren't as close as they were before, but there's no "bad blood" between the former teammates.

"There's actually still a lot of love," Brown said in the episode released Tuesday. "I love him. I love him to death. I want him to succeed and accomplish all the things he wants to accomplish. I didn't truly understand why our friendship became the center of everybody's attention when it came to football, because looking back on it, we haven't been as close as we were a couple of years now, but that didn't stop anything. We still competed, we still pushed each other, we still led the team."

Brown said nothing happened between him and Hurts, but the two have grown apart since they became teammates in Philadelphia.

"Nothing happened between me and him or our families, or wives, anything, nothing like that ever happened," Brown said. "Life happens, and you just look up sometimes and find yourself drifting away, and that's fine. And I think both parties accepted that." 

In the 2024 season, Eagles legend Brandon Graham said on his radio show that Hurts and Brown's relationship had changed since his first year in Philadelphia. 

Hurts and Brown had been close since they were in college. Hurts hosted Brown during a recruiting visit to the University of Alabama, and he's the godfather of his daughter. 

Last week before the trade, Hurts said his relationship with Brown was "really good" and that he was happy to see him get married in May.  

"Nothing can replace all of the greatness that we achieved together," Hurts said last week.

Brown's final season in Philadelphia was filled with drama and cryptic social media posts that some speculated were directed at Hurts or head coach Nick Sirianni. 

Brown even voiced his frustrations about the offense on a Twitch stream where he said it's been an "[expletive] show" and told fantasy football players to drop him. 

Brown said he didn't handle all of the moments the best way, including being on social media. He said he would say certain things about the offense to the media in order to force the team to address issues. 

"I knew if I say something in the media, I know it's propel us to work on it because now everybody is talking about it," Brown said. 

At the end of the 2025 season, Brown said it felt like his time was up in Philadelphia.

Now, he'll continue his career with the team he grew up rooting for: the Patriots. 

Despite being from Starkville, Mississippi, Brown has been a Patriots fan since he was a kid. He was devastated when the Patriots passed over him in the 2019 NFL draft. 

During the interview, Brown showed off a Patriots rug that he said he's had for a few years, including when he played for the Eagles.

"This is my team, this is my team since I was a kid," Brown said. "It didn't matter. I was doing what I was supposed to be doing as an Eagle, but this is it."