It’s time to admit what the Eagles have been telling us all along during this free agency period
The Eagles will have to adapt to the life that true dynasty must live. Build from within. Plug and play. Free agency is now a place they must sit and watch everyone else overspend.
If the airwaves and algorithms are any indication, panic has officially set in. Three of the defensive starters are gone. The superstar wide receiver could soon follow them. Taking their place are a 31-year-old blocking tight end and a reclamation project cornerback. The biggest news the Eagles made on Thursday came in the form of a reported four-year, $14 million contract extension for their punter. And there we were wondering if Nick Sirianni knew he had a punter.
The fan base is alarmed. The talking heads are puzzled. The influencers are twisting themselves in knots to explain why nothing is as it seems.
Bad news, folks. Everything is exactly as it seems. An old friend once said that if it quacks like a duck and acts like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Same goes for a capped-out football team that knows now might be the best time to take its medicine. Which is what the Eagles are.
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Really, it shouldn’t qualify as news. The Eagles have been telling us that this is where they are.
“As you get better, you have a natural arc of a team …”
“There’s a natural transition in what we do …”
“The important thing for us is that there are players that we can’t lose …”
“You’re going to make sacrifices …”
“We’ve got to understand the people that we’re bringing into the building … If we do that, good things will happen. We’ll be able to keep the players that we need to keep under long-term contracts and have an influx of young players that are really good that can play at a high level.”
Howie Roseman said all of those things in a span of about two minutes back on Jan. 15. If the words themselves didn’t resonate, his tone should have. He did not speak with a sly confidence that said, “Just you wait and see.” He spoke like a man who was keenly aware that his circumstances weren’t any rosier than they seemed.
The Eagles have a top-of-the-market quarterback, and a top-of-the-market running back, and two top-of-the-market receivers. They have two offensive tackles who rank among the best and highest-paid at their positions. They also have three young defensive cornerstones at premium positions who could soon command greater contracts than all but the quarterback. Jalen Carter, Cooper DeJean and Quinyon Mitchell are the three players Roseman was presumably referencing when he spoke of players that the Eagles cannot afford to lose. They are the priorities right now. It is a blessing that comes with the sacrifice of luxuries of offseasons past.
That people assumed there was more than met the eye is a testament to Roseman’s track record. He is the master of the hard pivot. The disappointment of Chip Kelly, the disappointment of Carson Wentz, the disappointment of 2023, all were vanquished with a decisive aggressiveness that began with the start of the new league year.
Roseman is the guy who traded up to draft Wentz after signing Sam Bradford, the guy who gave Haason Reddick a $45 million contract. The last time the Eagles were coming off a second-half collapse and a one-and-done postseason, Roseman signed Bryce Huff, Saquon Barkley, and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson to a combined (nominal) total of $121.9 million over nine years. Remember that? Two years ago, the Eagles gave $34 million guaranteed to a guy who announced Thursday that he was retiring at the age of 27. And it didn’t even matter!
But the Eagles are in a different place now than they were back then. Can they afford a contract like the one they gave Huff? Sure. There is usually away. What they can’t afford is to be wrong about such a contract. There is a decent chance they would have been had they given Jaelan Phillips the $80 million guaranteed that the Panthers reportedly gave him.
The Eagles are at a point in their competitive cycle where a move like that must be judged first and foremost by what it may force you to sacrifice. Opportunity costs smack different for a team like the Panthers. Their quarterback is on a rookie contract, as is much of the offense. They are in the same exponential growth phase that saw the Eagles acquire and extend A.J. Brown and sign Reddick and Huff and Gardner-Johnson and Barkley and still have room to extend DeVonta Smith and Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson and Zack Baun. The Eagles are no longer in that phase. They — and their balance sheet — are fully mature.
The big moves will be ones that may not feel big at a time. Remember, the offseason that they signed Huff and Barkley was the one they signed Mekhi Becton and Baun. It was the same offseason they drafted Mitchell and DeJean. Those latter four moves are the sorts that the Eagles will need in order to right the wrongs of 2025.
It’s an awfully big ask to think Roseman can pull the same rabbit out of the draft that he did in 2024. They need a tight end, and they need a wide receiver, and they will need both of those things whether Brown and Dallas Goedert are here or not. Neither is a position where guys like Baun come out of the free agency woodwork. If they don’t get those things, they will need a quarterback who can live without them, or an offensive game-planner/play-caller who can work a bit of magic. That’s how the Chiefs’ offense has survived its pivot toward defense. The jury is out — way out — on whether Hurts and Sirianni can do it.
In the meantime, the Eagles will have to adapt to the life that true dynasty must live. Build from within. Plug and play. Free agency is now a place they must sit and watch everyone else overspend.