A.J. Brown and Eagles coaches are embroiled in a feud as the team loses its fourth of five games

The Eagles have a problem. It wears No. 11, and it wears headsets, and it’s tearing the team apart.

For the second consecutive game, superstar receiver A.J. Brown was visibly upset at the Eagles’ play calls on the field. For the second consecutive game, standing at his locker after the game, Brown declined to address the state of the Eagles.

“I’m not about to talk. It ain’t nothing to say,” Brown said, smiling. Eager to clarify the source of his dissatisfaction, Brown told the media, “It ain’t directed toward y’all.”

That’s because, according to teammates, it’s directed toward the coaching staff.

After losing four of their last five games, including Sunday’s 35-31 upset to a now four -win Arizona Cardinals team that was nearly a two-touchdown underdog, Eagles coach Nick Sirianni knows he has a locker-room crisis.

Brown isn’t alone in his fury. He’s just the least reserved.

Sirianni’s “Flower-Power” ethos rings hollow in the moment, and, as the NFC’s top seed and the NFC East title slip away, he’s begging his guys to keep the faith that pushed them to the Super Bowl last year.

“Stick together. Stick together. Everyone’s got to stick together,” Sirianni pleaded after Sunday’s catastrophe. “I think there’s going to be a lot of people trying to point the finger at different things. Everybody’s got to stick together, right? We win as a team. We lose as a team. And together is the most important thing that we can be right now.”

His team is coming apart at the seams.

In Sunday’s loss to the visiting Cardinals, after the Eagles crawled into a shell facing first-and-20 during their late fourth-quarter drive, Brown left the field shaking his head.

Later, after a failed Hail Mary pass, Brown sat on the ground in the back of the end zone. He took off his helmet. He moped. Finally, teammates Julio Jones and Olamide Zaccheaus came over and pulled him to his feet.

It took Brown a full five minutes to make it to the other end of the stadium and into the Eagles’ tunnel. It was as if the end of the game had left him empty.

The Cardinals, a three-win team with nothing to lose, had tried an onside kick that failed. Jalen Hurts quickly hit Brown with an 18-yard slant to ensure a field-goal chance, even after Jordan Mailata’s 10-yard holding penalty made it first-and-20 at the Cardinals’ 30.

But then, incredibly, none of the last three plays of the drive went to Brown. A.J. Brown clearly is the Eagles’ best player. He might be the best receiver in team history. He might be the best receiver in the NFL. He was not targeted.

Instead, the plays went: quarterback run; QB run-pass option, which Hurts ran; and a bubble screen to Kenneth Gainwell.

Nothing for A.J.

It was like keeping your Porsche in second gear on the Autobahn.

» READ MORE: Eagles falter vs. Cardinals after questionable play-calling in crunch time. Why go conservative?

The game was tied. The Eagles obviously didn’t want to risk a turnover. They played for a field goal, which made it 31-28 with 2 minutes, 33 seconds to play.

“I don’t think that’s conservative there,” said Sirianni, who followed with a few seconds of intensive coach-speak, which would have made sense if his defense had shown one iota of effectiveness in the second half.

Brown and the rest of us then watched the Eagles defense give up the winning touchdown with 32 seconds to play.

Sirianni wasn’t asked directly about Brown, but he knows he has a fractured locker room. He did some of the fracturing.

Last week, during a win over the New York Giants, Sirianni lashed out on the sideline at rookie Jalen Carter, edge rusher Haason Reddick, Jeremiah Washburn, Reddick’s position coach, and receiver DeVonta Smith.

» READ MORE: F-bomb fireworks: Nick Sirianni scorches players, grows up on the Eagles sideline, right before our eyes

Brown wasn’t the only quiet man after that game. Reddick didn’t talk, either … and, after Sunday’s loss, he didn’t deny that he was angry at Sirianni.

“Emotions run high, man,” Reddick told me in a direct response to the previous week’s events. “Emotions run high.”

Apparently, Brown’s emotions remained high. He wanted the chance to win the game. He was denied. He watched Sirianni put the game in the hands of its worst unit.

The defense stinks. The line is exhausted. Middle linebacker Zach Cunningham is hurt. So is Pro Bowl cornerback Darius Slay. Every week, the Eagles’ best chance of winning is to hold on to the ball and score as many points as possible.

» READ MORE: Forget it: The Eagles and their defense aren’t good enough

You ain’t scoring points and running clock with QB keepers and screens. Brown knows that. Everybody knows that, it seems, besides Sirianni and offensive coordinator Brian Johnson.

That said, a veteran captain openly disrespecting his coaches is more than just a bad look. It’s locker room poison.

“Any time you have bad body language from a leader like that, other guys see it, and it’s not good,” said one veteran.

Again, Brown declined to address his situation: both his relationship with his coaches and his on-field displays of anger and frustration.

Last week, he said, “I was taught if I had nothing good to say to not say anything. I’ll take the fine if I have to.” He then refused to speak to the press during the week. Players can be fined for not speaking after games and for not speaking at least once between games.

» READ MORE: A.J. Brown isn’t a selfish diva. He’s trying to handle social media and mind his mental health.

A player going into complete radio silence normally wouldn’t be such big news, but Brown’s case is different.

First, since he landed in Philadelphia last season he set a precedent of being both very available and very honest. He is a good friend of Hurts and a solid mentor for costar Smith. He cost the Eagles a first-round pick and $100 million. So far, he has been a bargain.

Second, Brown has clashed with Hurts on the sideline, most memorably in Game 2 this season, as Smith starred and the Eagles won.

Third, Brown last week tweeted a strange old rant from noted NBA drama king Kevin Durant.

“I try to play the right way. What’s the problem? What am I doing to y’all? Why I gotta talk to you?” Durant said.

Well, like Durant, Brown is contractually obligated to do so; petulant Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch says he was fined $1.2 million during his career for avoiding the press.

The second part of Durant’s rant included this gem:

“I just don’t trust none of you. Every time I say something it gets twisted up. …”

Brown doesn’t distrust the media. He’s a chronic truth-teller. He doesn’t trust himself.

He doesn’t want to practice diplomacy if he’s asked about a play-calling regimen that has helped the Eagles lose four of their last five games. He doesn’t want to dissect why, after being included in the offense at a feverish pace, he has become a comparative afterthought.

Through the first eight games of the season, Brown caught 60 passes for 939 yards and five touchdowns, a pace for 127 catches, 2,059 yards, and 10 TDs, which arguably would have been one of the top seasons for a receiver in NFL history. The Eagles went 7-1.

In the eight games since, Brown has caught just 45 passes for 508 yards and two TDs. The Eagles have gone 4-4.

Brown has good cause for frustration. He should be upset that he’s not being featured more. But he shouldn’t show it.

Not on the field, where, unless he’s shaking his head or throwing up his hands, he has been hard to find.

And certainly not at the podium, where he has been completely invisible.