NFL news: AJ Brown trade and Odell Beckham Jr workout highlight possible wide receiver moves

With 100 days until the first NFL game of the 2026 season, at least two teams (the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants) are looking to make major roster decisions with big-name players, and moves involving AJ Brown and Odell Beckham Jr. could come as early as Monday.

The Giants, who have been in contact with Beckham for more than a month, are expected to bring the receiver to their facility on Monday, according to a source confirmed by OutKick and Fox News Digital.

The Giants also practiced with JuJu Smith-Schuster, Anthony Miller and Braxton Berrios on Monday. Smith-Schuster is familiar with the team’s offense because he played last season in Kansas City under Giants offensive coordinator Matt Nagy.

Beckham, 33, wants to return to the team that drafted him in 2014 and has been working for weeks to get a contract offer and opportunity. Beckham even attended the team’s charity softball game over the weekend and was fully engaged with quarterback Jaxson Dart and other players.

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The Giants need receiver help after losing Gunner Olszewski for the season to an Achilles tear.

While Beckham isn’t a special teams player like Olszewski or Berrios, he’s a favorite of coach John Harbaugh and provides some reassurance that Malik Nabors hasn’t proven he’s fully ready to take the field following ACL surgery in October and a cleansing procedure to remove scar tissue in April.

As the Giants look to add receiver help, the Eagles are now in a better position to financially move on from star receiver AJ Brown.

That’s because June 1 triggers salary cap mechanisms that allow the team to trade the star receiver.

Philadelphia Eagles winger AJ Brown throws a touchdown pass over Dallas Cowboys cornerback DaRon Bland during the first half of an NFL game on November 23, 2025 in Arlington, Texas. (Julio Cortez/AP)

These mechanisms, which begin Monday, allow Philadelphia to spread the dead cap weight of a trade over multiple seasons rather than having to absorb most of it in 2026, which the Eagles cannot realistically manage. June 1 significantly reduces the immediate limit and makes trading much more manageable.

Trading for Brown before June 1 would have forced the Eagles to pay $43.4 million in dead money, making the deal financially impractical. That dead money charge for 2026 dropped to $16.3 million on Monday because it is now spread over multiple seasons.

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The Eagles have been in talks with multiple teams about trading Brown since the NFL Draft.

The team that has consistently shown the most interest in Brown has been the New England Patriots. But there is a problem:

The Eagles want a first-round draft pick in exchange for Brown.

The Patriots don’t want to give up their 2027 first-round draft pick. So far, no one else has done so either, according to multiple league sources.

AJ Brown of the Philadelphia Eagles reacts after a game against the Los Angeles Rams at Lincoln Financial Field on September 21, 2025 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)

So, while the Eagles are now less financially constrained from making a trade, they are unwilling to pursue what they believe will be a massive sale for a very talented receiver. They want market value for a good player to be what the club’s general manager, Howie Rosen, is happy with.

This begs the question of why the Eagles are willing to part with a talented 29-year-old (later this month) while he’s still in his prime years of production.

Everyone around the NFL knows that for much of last year there were signs of frustration with Brown’s role in Philadelphia’s offense, especially last season when the passing game took a backseat to the run-heavy approach centered around the Eagles’ 2,000-yard rusher Saquon Barkley.

Brown has expressed his dissatisfaction with his role on the team and even with quarterback Jalen Hurts, sometimes publicly and sometimes through cryptic social media posts. Eagles coaches, teammates and sometimes even Brown himself have had to account for the distraction created by having a seemingly unsatisfied player on the roster despite his $32 million-a-year contract making him the NFL’s seventh-highest-paid wide receiver.

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The reason other teams, the media, and fans aren’t surprised by this trade is because Philadelphia spent the offseason adding recruiting depth and preparing for a future without Brown.

This coming looks closer as of Monday morning.

FOLLOW ARMANDO SALGUERO ON X: @ARMANDOSALGUERO