On Tuesday, free agent wide receiver Hollywood Brown signed a one-year contract with the Philadelphia Eagles after spending the past two seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Later in the day, Brown joined hosts Emmanual Acho and former Chiefs running back LeSean McCoy on their YouTube show “The Speakeasy.”
When Brown came to Kansas City and was paired with star quarterback Patrick Mahomes, expectations were high for the impact he could make. Unfortunately, he missed most of the 2024 season while recovering
from a shoulder injury suffered in the first preseason game. Initially thought to be a week-to-week ailment, Brown eventually underwent surgery and returned just ahead of the postseason.
Brown believes he would have gotten off to a strong start in red and gold without the injury.
“It’s so crazy,” he recalled. “Me personally, when I got there, I was probably having the best camp of my whole career. I was killing it. Then, I had the unfortunate random injury that kept me out for the year.”
Turning to the Chiefs’ disappointing 2025 season that saw them miss the playoffs, Brown does not feel the results take away from the culture built by head coach Andy Reid, his staff, and Kansas City’s veterans in the locker room.
Brown maintains an affinity for Reid, who he says helped put in a word to help him catch on with the Eagles. Although he will not be a part of next Chiefs team, he expects to see his now former team rebound.
“In this league, the margin of error is so small,” remarked Brown. “I felt like the group of guys and the staff we had with Coach Reid, I wouldn’t be able to handle that adversity anywhere else than where I just handled it at. The way he kept us in it [and] the way we still never gave up — it wasn’t a season we wanted to have, but it was a season we all learned from. Every player [and] from the coaches to the staff —we didn’t look at it as a loss. We looked at it as a learning lesson. You can tell that’s a winning culture. When you go through a season like that, you could turn on each other. You can do this, do that. For us, it was like, ‘Ok, we learned from this. Attack the offseason harder.’ Whoever’s going to be in that building over there, those guys are going to get ready to go for the next year.”
As Brown departs Kansas City, he has a unique perspective having played both with Mahomes and Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson. He also revealed he came close to returning to Baltimore if he had not signed with Philadelphia.
While how Mahomes and Jackson compare is a frequent topic for media takes (with one side frequently ignoring the importance of championships), Brown declined to definitively answer the question of who is better, though he was adamant that Jackson remains underappreciated.
“People always think I’m trying to duck the answer when I say this,” he offered, “I’m truly a guy that I appreciate greatness for what it is. I’m not a comparison type of guy. I’m a Lamar advocate through and through. He gets too much disrespect. He’s one of the best pure football players that I’ve ever seen in my life.
“Pat — Pat’s just Pat. One thing about Pat that you can’t argue is what he’s accomplished. You don’t accomplish what he’s accomplished if you’re not great — if you’re not really that. Those two guys, I’m just blessed to be able to tell my kids the traits that these two guys have — the traits and the similarities. At the end of the day, I feel like Lamar Jackson…when it’s all said and done, when he’s done, he’ll get more praise. They’re going to talk about him as one of the best football players to play the game ever.”
