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With the first NFL game of the 2026 season 100 days away, at least two teams — the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants — are looking to make significant roster decisions with big-name wide receivers, and those moves involving A.J. Brown and Odell Beckham Jr. could come as early as Monday.
The Giants, who have been in contact with Beckham for over a month, and are expected to bring the receiver to their facility on Monday, a source confirmed to OutKick and Fox News Digital.
The Giants are also working out JuJu Smith-Schuster, Anthony Miller and Braxton Berrios on Monday. Smith-Schuster is familiar with the team’s offense because he played under Giants offensive coordinator Matt Nagy in Kansas City last season.
Beckham, 33, wants to return to the team that drafted him in 2014 and has been working toward landing a contract offer and opportunity for weeks. Beckham even attended the team 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 what the team believes is an Achilles tear.
And while Beckham is not a special teams contributor like Olszewski was or Berrios would be, he is a favorite of coach John Harbaugh and does bring some insurance in that Malik Nabors hasn’t proven he’s fully ready to be on the field following ACL surgery in October and a clean-up procedure to remove scar tissue in April.
While the Giants are looking to add receiver help, the Eagles are now more financially able to move on from star receiver A.J. Brown.
That’s because June 1 triggers salary cap mechanisms for allowing the team to trade the star receiver.
Those mechanisms that begin Monday allow Philadelphia to spread that dead cap weight of a trade across multiple seasons rather than having to absorb most of it in 2026, which the Eagles could not realistically manage. June 1 dramatically reduces the immediate cap hit and makes a trade much more manageable.
Before June 1, trading Brown would have forced the Eagles to carry a $43.4 million dead-money charge, making a deal financially impractical. That dead-money charge for 2026 shrinks to $16.3 million on Monday because it is now spread over multiple seasons.
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The Eagles have been engaging with multiple teams about a Brown trade since before the NFL Draft.
And the team that showed the most interest in Brown has consistently been the New England Patriots. But there’s an issue:
The Eagles want a first-round pick in exchange for Brown.
The Patriots don’t want to give up a 2027 first-round pick. And neither does anyone else, so far, according to multiple league sources.
So, while the Eagles are now financially less constrained from making a trade, they do not wish to conduct what they believe would be a fire sale for a very talented receiver. They want what club general manager Howie Rosen is satisfied is market value for a good player.
That begs the question why the Eagles are willing to part with a talented player at age 29 (later this month), while he is still in his top production years?
Well, everyone in the NFL knows that for much of the past year, there have been signs of frustration from Brown regarding his role in Philadelphia’s offense, particularly last season when the passing game took a back seat to the Eagles’ run-heavy approach centered around 2,000-yard rusher Saquon Barkley.
Brown has sometimes publicly and sometimes via cryptic social media posts expressed dissatisfaction with his role on the team and even with quarterback Jalen Hurts. Eagles coaches, teammates and sometimes even Brown himself have had to answer for the distraction of having a seemingly unsatisfied player on the roster despite his $32 million per year contract that makes him the NFL’s seventh-highest-paid wide receiver.
The reason other teams, media and fans would not be surprised by this trade is Philadelphia has spent the offseason adding receiving depth and preparing for a future without Brown.
That future seems closer starting Monday morning.
FOLLOW ARMANDO SALGUERO ON X: @ARMANDOSALGUERO
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