Soooo…Why Couldn’t AJ Brown & Jalen Hurts Co-exist on the Philadelphia Eagles?

A.J. Brown is a Patriot, and Rich found it fitting, because New England has a habit of turning up next to football's great unsolved mysteries. Why didn't Marshawn Lynch get the ball at the goal line? Why didn't Malcolm Butler play in a Super Bowl against the Eagles? Add a new one to the file: what exactly went wrong between A.J. Brown and Jalen Hurts in Philadelphia?

Maria Taylor put the question to Brown directly, and his answer was all warmth.

"There's no bad blood. There's actually still a lot of love. I love him to death," Brown said of Hurts. He said he never understood why their friendship became the center of everyone's attention, admitting the two had not been as close in recent years but insisting it never got in the way. "We still competed, we still pushed each other, we still led the team."

Rich is convinced the public will never get a cleaner answer than that, at least not from Hurts. When the quarterback is eventually asked, Rich predicted, he will call Brown a brother, note that they won together, and deliver something that sounds like it came from scripture or a fortune cookie. Case closed, nothing learned.

The real consequence is what happens next in Philadelphia. The lid on the mystery only stays on if the offense does not miss Brown. If it does, this quietly becomes a Jalen Hurts story.

So the questions pile up. The Eagles are expected to put Hurts under center more. Who becomes the go-to target now? Rich put DeVonta Smith on the clock as the new No. 1, with Saquon Barkley able to carry the load and an offensive line that has to hold up.

Rich is not betting against Hurts, though. The pattern in Philadelphia, he noted, is that every other year the Eagles turn dynamite, win the division and make a Super Bowl run, and Hurts saves his best for the biggest stages. This is a quarterback who played well enough to merit MVP consideration in a Super Bowl he lost to Patrick Mahomes. Pressure, Rich said, either does not reach him or never shows.

Losing number 11 puts more on Hurts, but he is used to it. It is Philadelphia. Every quarterback there had better be, and head coach Nick Sirianni will shrug it off the way the city does.

Then Rich turned to the schedule, and the football gods clearly have a sense of humor. The Eagles open against Washington, then travel to Tennessee, with the whole country watching their prime-time tour. Week 3 brings a Monday night trip to Chicago, the team that punked Brown, Hurts and Barkley the day after Thanksgiving last season. And the week after that, in Week 4, here comes Myles Garrett in his fresh new horns, hunting Jalen Hurts.

That, Rich said, is how the season will start for the Eagles. And now that A.J. Brown is a Patriot, he is very interested in watching it unfold.