Howie Roseman peels back curtain on how he pulled off draft-day trade with Titans for A.J. Brown in 2022

Since the Philadelphia Eagles acquired now-three-time All-Pro receiver A.J. Brown though a draft-day trade with the Tennessee Titans in 2022, they've made two Super Bowls in three seasons.

Brown has collected his first ring as well as the the fourth-most receiving yards (4,031) and seventh-most receiving touchdowns (25) of any player in the NFL in that span.

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Meanwhile, his old team, the Titans, has missed the playoff three times — after making the postseason each of Brown's three years in Tennessee — and tied a franchise record with 14 losses last year, posting the inverse record of the 14-win, Super Bowl-champion Eagles.

Put simply, the Titans were the worst team in the league in 2024, and the Eagles were the best.

Philadelphia's trade with Tennessee three years ago is aging like fine wine, and the architect behind it peeled back the curtain on how it went down.

Coming off his second Super Bowl victory as Eagles general manager, Howie Roseman made an appearance on Thursday's episode of the "Bussin' With The Boys" podcast.

Roseman explained his behind-the-scenes dialogue with then-Titans GM Jon Robinson, discourse that wasn't immediately privy to the rest of Roseman's war room on draft day.

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"The interesting thing was that we had the trade done, the terms agreed to in the morning, but we had to get a contract done with [A.J.]," Roseman said on the podcast.

"At the time, we started with three first-round picks in that draft. We traded one for a future pick with New Orleans. Then we still had two. And basically I said, 'Jon, if we can't get a contract done, we can't do this trade. We can't trade you a one and a three for one year of a player. We got to get a contract done first.'"

Roseman explained how the Eagles traded up to pick Georgia defensive tackle Jordan Davis with the No. 13 overall pick. They were due to pick again at No. 18.

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"Our contract's still not done," Roseman said, explaining the timing to "Bussin' With The Boys" co-hosts Taylor Lewan and Will Compton. "And Jon's like, 'Well, what are we doing? What's going on here?'"

In between the Davis pick and the Eagles' next scheduled selection, Roseman had to reach a contract agreement with Brown so he could finalize the trade with Robinson.

"Nobody knew except a couple people that we were even doing it because I said, 'Imagine this falls apart. I'm going to be the GM who can't get a deal done with A.J.?'" Roseman continued.

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Roseman said that the trade was finalized by about the No. 14 pick in the draft. That's when he turned to Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and head coach Nick Sirianni.

"I said, 'We're going to surprise our room when we're on the clock. They don't know anything about it,'" Roseman recalled.

"And so when we get ready to pick, I'm just going to say, 'Hey guys, we're picking A.J. Brown,' and they're all going to look at me, like 'What the f***'s going on?' But they're going to be excited as s***."

Roseman added: "And so it was really fun. It was great energy. It was really like, I can't even get to five on the amount of people who knew in our building because of the contract situation."

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What was sold as a win-win deal at the time certainly didn't end that way.

The Titans drafted receiver Treylon Burks with the first-round pick acquired in the Brown trade, then dealt the other pick to gain additional selections.

Burks was released last month, days after he suffered a broken collarbone at practice. He totaled just 53 catches, 699 receiving yards and 1 touchdown in 27 games over three seasons with the Titans, the last of which was derailed by an ACL injury.

As for Robinson, he was fired days after the Eagles and Brown defeated his Titans in Week 13 of the 2022 season.

Roseman struck a draft-day deal that was a steal in 2022 and is a marvel in 2024.

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Turns out, its origins make for a pretty good story, too.