Rich Hofmann: Eagles about to face a familiar perception problem

THE EAGLES-are-cheap conversation, which has always been based more on perception than reality, is about to be taken for another spin around the neighborhood. So get ready.

They have spent a bunch of money over the years. There is the occasional season where they have so much cap space available that they don't know what to do with it, but that really is only a sometimes thing. They fight with players over their contracts sometimes, such as Sheldon Brown, but it's usually about the contract more than it is about the cash.

The truth is that the Eagles acquire big-money players through free agency and trades, such as Asante Samuel and Jason Peters and Kevin Curtis and more, and that the players they really want to keep tend to get paid really well.

Still, they have had to fight this bogus perception over the years and they are about to have to fight it again, now that the salary cap is about to be retired to the same vault of obsolete headwear in which the leather helmet is currently stored.

In the NFL, the cap used to be everybody's fig leaf - but it is being ripped away, courtesy of the building labor problems with the NFL Players Association. Barring a miracle, 2010 will be an uncapped season and teams will be free to spend whatever they want to spend on players. There will be limitations on unrestricted free-agency pickups for the best teams, and there are minimum salaries for individual players, but that's it.

Into this walks DeSean Jackson, who has clearly outplayed his initial contract and who will certainly have his hand out. Then there is an Eagles defense desperate for several new starting-caliber players - especially desperate if the team retains Donovan McNabb at quarterback in what will have to be considered a win-or-else season.

And then there is this list of restricted free agents on the roster, guys like Leonard Weaver, Jason Avant, Nick Cole and Akeem Jordan, to name four. Guys like them, and other restricted free agents throughout the league, could be the battleground guys this offseason.

The size of the tender the Eagles offer to keep them will determine the amount of compensation the Eagles would receive if they chose not to match a competing offer from another team. A large tender - north of $3 million brings compensation equaling a first- and third-round draft choice - signals to the rest of the league that you're keeping the guy. Lower tenders bring lower compensation, and suggest to everyone that you're willing to take your chances.

The new uncapped rules limit how the top eight teams can spend on unrestricted free agents, but these restricted guys are fair game. To repeat: These restricted guys could be the battleground for the NFL's new big spenders. And if you're looking to upgrade your defense in a hurry, as the Eagles are, might this not be the place to look?

Under the old salary-capped system, it became clear pretty quickly that NFL teams could not spend their way out of problems. You had to build through the draft. Free-agency was for the occasional addition, not a steady diet. There just wasn't enough money.

But if there are no limits, you can look at this a couple of ways. The occasional free-agent splash does not have to be so occasional anymore. The draft will always be important, but might it not be a little less important? And one more thing: The notion that you can't keep everyone - that the economics of the game force good teams to make hard decisions about still-productive players, which makes it tough for good teams to stay good - is pretty much gone, too.

Those philosophical questions will play out over time, and we are just at that beginning. There are teams that will embrace the notion of spending and there are teams that won't.

The Eagles were always intellectually ahead in the capped world, but what now? Will they still value the draft as much? Will they still be all about signing young players to those contracts that so many of the players end up hating in the end? Will they still be so quick to unload an aging player a year early rather than a year late?

But that is for later. In the here and now, the Eagles have a DeSean Jackson question and a defense question, and money will play a significant part in the answer.

With that, an old conversation begins anew. *

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