A.J. Brown isn’t the first star Howie Roseman traded from the Eagles. Here’s how some of the other deals worked out.

It is hard to find great football players. That’s a line Howie Roseman has gone back to over and over again during his tenure leading the Eagles.

It is why the general manager has more times than not been the one acquiring premier talent via trade, rather than parting with elite players.

A.J. Brown might be the best player Roseman has ever traded away from the Eagles. He’s definitely one of the few stars seemingly still in his prime that Roseman has traded, even if you’re in the camp that believes Brown has started to drop off as age 30 gets closer and his lower-body injuries persist.

But Brown is not the first Eagles star Roseman has sent packing in a trade since taking over as the head of the front office in 2010. Here’s a look — in chronological order — at 10 previous star deals and how they worked out:

One of Roseman’s first moves as GM came when he interrupted your Easter dinner on April 4, 2010 and sent McNabb to a division rival for second- and fourth-round draft picks.

It’s arguably Roseman’s most high-profile trade until this week.

McNabb in 2009 made his sixth Pro Bowl and was 10-4 in his 14 starts. But the Eagles got walloped — and McNabb struggled — in a wild-card round playoff loss in Dallas.

The best quarterback in franchise history was still just 33 years old, but Roseman banked on his best football being behind him. He was right. McNabb went 5-8 in 13 starts with Washington in 2010, and then finished his career in 2011 when he played six games and went 1-5 in six games with Minnesota.

The Eagles used the second-round pick in the McNabb deal to draft Nate Allen, who started 69 games at safety during five seasons with the team — nice value for a quarterback who was at the end of the road. The fourth-round pick was later traded.

Kolb was no star, but he was a starting quarterback and the Eagles didn’t have much use for him after Michael Vick took the reins.

The Eagles had drafted Kolb 36th overall in 2007 as a succession plan for McNabb. They traded him to Arizona on July 28, 2011 for cornerback Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie and a second-round pick.

Rodgers-Cromartie played 29 games (19 starts) across two seasons with the Eagles. The pick was sent to Green Bay in a deal that netted Vinny Curry and Brandon Boykin. The former had 30 sacks in eight seasons with the Eagles. The latter was a productive nickel corner who had six interceptions in 2013.

Kolb, meanwhile, went 6-8 in 14 starts with Arizona over the next two seasons. He signed with Buffalo in 2013 but never played a regular-season game there. He suffered a severe concussion during a preseason game and eventually retired in 2014.

The asterisk is an important one. This was a Chip Kelly move (the first of two on this list). Roseman was stripped of his chief personnel duties as the Eagles handed the keys to Kelly, which didn’t work out well.

The Eagles traded McCoy to the Bills on March 3, 2015 in exchange for linebacker Kiko Alonso.

Alonso, a second-round pick in 2013, played just one season with the Eagles (more on that later). McCoy, meanwhile, made three consecutive Pro Bowls with the Bills after being traded away.

Kelly wasn’t done tinkering with the offense. A week later, the Eagles sent Foles, a second-round pick, and a fourth-round pick to the Rams for Sam Bradford and a fifth-round pick.

Both starting quarterbacks played just one season with their new teams.

Foles, however, would famously return to the Eagles for a second stint.

Alonso and Maxwell probably don’t qualify as stars, but they were big acquisitions by Kelly, and one of Roseman’s first moves after returning to the throne was to package both of them with the 13th pick in the 2016 draft for pick No. 8.

More than a month later, on April 20, 2016, the Eagles traded a lot of draft capital to move up to No. 2 to draft Carson Wentz.

You don’t draft a quarterback at No. 2 overall and have him ride the bench. The writing was on the wall for Bradford’s exit after the Eagles selected Wentz, and while Roseman had both quarterbacks all through camp, he pounced when the market was right.

The Minnesota Vikings had just lost Teddy Bridgewater to a season-ending ACL injury in practice and needed a starter. The Eagles sent Bradford to Minnesota on Sept. 3, 2016 for a 2017 first-round pick and a conditional 2018 pick. The Eagles selected Derek Barnett with the 2017 first and then drafted Josh Sweat with the other pick.

Each player had a key role on a Super Bowl-winning team.

Bradford went 9-8 in 17 starts with the Vikings over the next two seasons and started three games with Arizona in 2018 before being benched and later released, ending his NFL career.

Matthews is no Brown, but he was the Eagles’ No. 1 receiver the previous two seasons when Roseman sent him, along with a third-round pick, to Buffalo on Aug. 11, 2017 in exchange for cornerback Ronald Darby.

Darby was a productive starter but battled injuries during his three seasons with the Eagles. The Bills got 25 catches and one touchdown in 10 games out of Matthews in the final year of his rookie deal. But they used the third-round pick to select defensive tackle Harrison Phillips in the 2018 draft.

Phillips is still a starting interior lineman in the league. Matthews, who was expendable in 2017 after the Eagles signed Alshon Jeffery, returned to Philadelphia in 2018 and then again for a short stint in 2019. He is now on the coaching staff at Vanderbilt.

Wentz was having an MVP-caliber season when he injured his knee in a 2017 Week 14 game in Los Angeles. He eventually watched Foles lead the Eagles to a Super Bowl that season. And while Wentz would get his gig back after a few games in 2018, he wasn’t the same dynamic player.

Roseman eventually found some value for Wentz a few years later. The Eagles traded Wentz for a conditional 2022 first-round pick and a 2021 third-round pick on March 17, 2021.

Roseman was crafty with those picks. He used them in various ways in deals that helped land the following players: DeVonta Smith, Jalen Carter, Cooper DeJean ... and even Brown.

Ertz, one of the best tight ends in Eagles history, still was a productive player when the Eagles sent him to Arizona before the trade deadline in October of 2021. But the Eagles had Dallas Goedert and Ertz was expendable.

They got depth cornerback Tay Gowan, who would play two games with the Eagles, and a fifth-round pick back from Arizona for Ertz.

That fifth-round pick was part of a package of picks the Eagles sent Houston to move up a few spots to select Jordan Davis with the 13th pick in the 2022 draft.

After posting 16 sacks and 11 sacks in his first two seasons with the Eagles, Reddick was traded to the Jets on April 1, 2024. The Eagles got back a conditional 2026 draft pick.

Reddick held out to start the 2024 season and didn’t reach the conditions to make the pick a second-rounder. Instead, the Eagles received a third-round pick, one they used to select Miami offensive tackle Markel Bell.

Reddick eventually played 10 games with the Jets in 2024 and recorded one sack. He then signed with Tampa Bay and had 2½ sacks in 2025.

The Eagles seem to be the winners in that deal, though time will tell.

Such is the case with the Brown deal.

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A.J. Brown is officially an Eagle no more! We knew the move was coming for weeks, if not months, but that doesn't make the departure of the Pro Bowl wide receiver and Super Bowl champion any less jarring. The Philadelphia Inquirer's Jeff McLane and David Murphy react to general manager Howie Roseman's trade with the New England Patriots. Listen here.

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