Howie Roseman takeaways: Eagles GM sees Saquon Barkley as ‘special’ and Bryce Huff as a difference-maker

Roseman couldn't resist the chance to add key players and continues to do his due diligence on improving the roster. One player he wouldn't address is Haason Reddick.

Eagles general manager Howie Roseman before the game against the Minnesota Vikings on Sept. 14.Read moreYong Kim / Staff Photographer

by Olivia Reiner

Published Mar. 25, 2024, 7:02 p.m. ET

ORLANDO, Fla. — Although he addressed the media against the backdrop of palm trees and swimming pools at the NFL annual league meeting on Monday, Eagles general manager Howie Roseman hasn’t exactly been kicking up his feet.

Since the new league year began, Roseman has been busy signing free agents, retaining and extending the Eagles’ own players, and making decisions on the futures of others. While the initial free-agency frenzy has passed, Roseman will continue to shape the roster as the draft approaches next month.

Here are five takeaways from Roseman’s remarks regarding some of his major offseason moves:

Roseman declines to comment on Reddick

Amid uncertainty surrounding Haason Reddick’s future with the Eagles, Roseman declined to comment on where the team stands with the veteran pass rusher.

“We’re not gonna talk about anyone’s contract situation,” Roseman said.

Last month, a league source confirmed to The Inquirer that the Eagles granted the 29-year-old Reddick permission to seek a trade this offseason as he heads into the final year of his contract. He has posted double-digit sacks in each of his last four seasons and will likely be looking for a raise on a new multiyear deal.

The Eagles’ passing rushing corps grew more crowded this offseason when Roseman signed 25-year-old Bryce Huff to a three-year deal reportedly worth up to $51.1 million with $34.4 million guaranteed, drawing Reddick and Josh Sweat’s futures further into question. Even though Huff served as a situational pass rusher for the New York Jets, his compensation indicated that the Eagles anticipate a greater role for him.

Two days after Huff agreed to terms with the Eagles, a league source told The Inquirer that Sweat agreed to a contract restructure on the final year of his deal that will guarantee him $10 million with a maximum value of $13 million. On March 19, the Eagles reportedly pushed Reddick’s $1 million roster bonus to April 1 to buy them time to make a trade, although the Eagles aren’t necessarily beholden to that self-imposed deadline as the two parties could agree to push the payout date back again.

With Huff now in the picture and Sweat on a restructured deal, all eyes are on Reddick as the potential odd man out as the draft draws closer.

Hard to find a ‘special player’ like Barkley

On the surface, the Eagles’ signing of running back Saquon Barkley to a three-year, $37.75 million deal with $26 million fully guaranteed is a departure from how Roseman has done business with free agents at the position in recent history.

The Eagles haven’t signed a free-agent running back to a multiyear deal since Matt Jones in 2018 (two years). DeMarco Murray, a Chip Kelly signing, preceded him with a five-year deal signed in 2015.

However, Roseman pushed back on the notion that he doesn’t sign running backs to multiyear, premium deals, especially when those running backs are “special players.” He pointed to the signings of Brian Westbrook to a five-year contract in 2005 (Roseman was the director of football administration at the time) and LeSean McCoy to a five-year extension worth up to $45 million with $20.7 guaranteed in 2012 as examples of committing substantial cap space to top running backs.

“I think for us, it’s hard to find special players at any position,” Roseman said. “We think Saquon’s a special player. We think he’s a special person. And so when you’re trying to find those guys, they’re hard to find, especially on the open market.”

Barkley, 27, proved his value as a ballcarrier, receiver, and pass blocker throughout his six seasons with the New York Giants. He surpassed 1,000 yards from scrimmage in four of those six seasons, and in 2020 he was sidelined for all but two games with a torn ACL. Roseman emphasized that there aren’t many other skill position players across the league that touch the ball as much as Barkley does and who have the same impact.

Roseman also acknowledged that McCoy signed his extension when he was 24, as opposed to Barkley committing to a three-year deal at 27 years old. However, Roseman expressed that the Eagles have done their due diligence to determine if it made sense to bring on Barkley despite his age and the workload he has already shouldered.

“The player trains unbelievably and he’s a freak,” Roseman said. “You see that in his testing numbers in his body. You see that in his GPS speeds. And so if we believe in the player, and we think that, based on the resources, and where you can put resources and based on the resources that go at that amount in the league, that this made a lot of sense for us.”

Pickett ‘made sense’ as backup to Hurts

Regardless of whether the Eagles take a player in the draft or not, Roseman said that they never know if an opportunity will come about to add that player to the roster in the future. That philosophy applies to quarterback Kenny Pickett, whom the Eagles acquired via trade on March 16 from the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Roseman and his staff did their research on Pickett when he was playing in college at Pitt, but the Steelers nabbed him to be their eventual starter in the first round, No. 20 overall in the 2022 draft. When the Steelers signed free-agent quarterback Russell Wilson on March 15, Pickett requested a trade, and Roseman felt like “it made sense” to bring him in as the replacement for previous backup quarterback Marcus Mariota.

Pickett, who turns 26 in June, is a “talented guy” who is more athletic than people give him credit for, according to Roseman. But he doesn’t have some of the same characteristics as Hurts, which appeared to be one of the selling points for Mariota last season.

Roseman emphasized that it’s more important to identify the best player in general and not necessarily the player with similar traits as Hurts. He used third-string quarterback Tanner McKee, their sixth-round, No. 188-overall pick in the 2023 draft out of Stanford, as an example of a player with different strengths than both Hurts and Mariota last season that the Eagles still added.

“It narrows your scope if you’re looking for a particular skill set,” Roseman said. “I mean, this is such a hard position to find. We can’t even find 32 in the world that can play at an elite level. So now you’re basically saying we’re looking for a specific skill set from this as opposed to is this a good player? Can this guy do things? And we feel like based on our coaching staff, based on the players that we have that we can dictate our offense based on a player’s skill set.”

Roseman also said that they let Hurts know that they were going to acquire Pickett so he could reach out and greet him.

“Jalen’s our franchise quarterback,” Roseman said. “I don’t think there’s anything that affects Jalen about who we bring in at the quarterback position. We have tremendous faith and trust in him. We communicate with him about anything that we’re doing, like we do with a bunch of our players, just so he has a heads up and so he can welcome [them] to the team.”

Huff has tools to ‘make a difference’

In his four seasons with the Jets, Huff was a designated pass rusher, taking most of his snaps in passing situations and never surpassing 51% of the defensive snaps in a single season (2021).

But Roseman said Huff has the “tools in his body to make a difference” and be an every-down player with the Eagles thanks to what he’s observed on tape, even if Huff wasn’t a Jets starter. Roseman added that general manager Joe Douglas built a deep group of edge rushers, including Jermaine Johnson and John Franklin-Myers, and coach Robert Saleh only had so many snaps to divvy up among them

Huff, who turns 26 on April 17, took 42% of the defensive snaps last season and led the Jets with 10 sacks in 17 games. By comparison, Reddick played 74% of the snaps and had 11 sacks and Sweat took 71% of the snaps and collected 6.5 sacks. Both pass rushers played in all 17 games.

While Huff will likely have an increased workload under new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, Roseman made it clear that Huff will still be used in a rotation, just as the Eagles have done in the past. Nolan Smith, their No. 30 overall pick in the 2023 draft out of Georgia, is poised to assume a bigger role and Brandon Graham is returning for his 15th season.

“We obviously believe in, also, that we don’t play our edge guys 90% of the time,” Roseman said. “We believe in kind of having these fastballs off the edge and getting guys in the game. But I think this perception about that he’s a liability versus the run, obviously we’ll see [about] that.”

Doing ‘due diligence’ on available free agents

The Eagles were busy at the start of free agency, signing 11 players who spent 2023 elsewhere and re-signing or extending six of their own, including left guard Landon Dickerson and kicker Jake Elliott. But there are still talented players left on the market, and Roseman is continuing to evaluate the Eagles’ options.

When Roseman was asked specifically about his interest in free agent safety Justin Simmons, who played for Fangio when he was the head coach of the Denver Broncos, the Eagles general manager spoke generally about his desire to improve the roster.

“There’s interest in us continuing to get better every day, including today,” Roseman said. “We’re looking at players that are available. We’re trying to gauge their price point. We’re trying to see if it’s a fit. I don’t think that can end, really, throughout the course of the offseason, certainly, and into the season. So any time there’s a good player out there, we have to do our due diligence.”

The Broncos released the 30-year-old Simmons on March 7, after earning a pair of Pro Bowl nods and four second-team All-Pro distinctions in his eight-year career with the team. Simmons has been one of many impact players available at safety this offseason thanks to the cratering of the position’s market.