Domo: Eagles' Roseman doesn't see free agency as the answer
INDIANAPOLIS - Alshon Jeffery? Fuhgeddaboudit. DeSean Jackson? In your dreams. Cornerbacks Stephon Gilmore or A.J. Bouye? Only if they're willing to work cheap.
INDIANAPOLIS - Alshon Jeffery?
Fuhgeddaboudit.
DeSean Jackson?
In your dreams.
Cornerbacks Stephon Gilmore or A.J. Bouye?
Only if they're willing to work cheap.
The NFL free-agent signing period gets underway on March 9, but Eagles executive vice president of football operations Howie Roseman did his best on Wednesday to shoot down any expectations that his team will be a major player in the world's biggest shopping spree.
"It goes back to primarily having a young quarterback and being in this mode of trying to build around him," Roseman told reporters at the NFL scouting combine. "We're not going to address any need that doesn't make sense from a long-term perspective in terms of resources.
"We're going to try to minimize our risk. We're not going to go out and try and sign a high-priced free agent if we don't think the value is there, even if it might be hard to look at that depth chart for a couple of months (until the draft). It's just not the right thing to do for our football team and our organization."
Roseman isn't throwing in the towel on the 2017 season, but neither is he making plans to visit the Mall of America in Minneapolis during Super Bowl week next February.
He knows he has a team that is several bricks shy of a load. He knows he needs to upgrade cornerback and wide receiver, and get defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz another edge-rusher. He knows he needs to improve the depth at linebacker and probably get another running back.
As Roseman mentioned in early January after the Eagles finished 7-9 and missed the playoffs for the fifth time in six years, they are playing a long game now, much as the 76ers and the Phillies are.
They are trying to construct a built-to-last team around their young quarterback, Carson Wentz. A team that won't just sneak into the playoffs every now and then with a 10-6 record and lose in the wild-card round, but one that will regularly compete for homefield advantage.
Pipe dream? Maybe. But that's Howie's story and he's sticking to it.
"I'm not trying to minimize 10-6," Roseman said. "But when you look back at the teams that make the Super Bowl, they're No. 1 and 2 seeds. Seventy-five percent, maybe 80 percent of all teams in the last 20 years have been No. 1 and 2 seeds.
"For us, being able to play home playoff games in Philly is something we aspire to. At the same time, we felt good last year getting guys like Brandon (Brooks) and Rodney (McLeod) in free agency. At the same time, the opportunity has to present itself."
The Eagles have slightly less than $11 million in cap space, which is the fourth-lowest in the league. By comparison, the Browns have more than $100 million in space. The Super Bowl-champion Patriots have $60 million.
The Eagles could create more cap space by releasing a few veteran players or asking them to restructure their contracts. So far, though, they have elected not to do that.
"We don't want to do something shortsighted," Roseman said. "It's easy to have a plan for getting rid of players. But do you have a plan to replace them?
"You have to adjust your thinking a little bit to what you have and what you need. Certainly, we're not sitting here saying we're one player away and if we sign this one guy, it's going to put us in a position to get over the top.
"So we're going to build it piece by piece and be aware of the risks involved. That doesn't mean we're not going to take some risks or do something to get through the moment at certain positions. But that's our plan."
This isn't a great free-agent class, particularly at many of the Eagles' positions of need. There are a few good wide receivers (Jeffery, Jackson, Terrelle Pryor, Pierre Garcon, Kenny Stills) and corners (Bouye, Gilmore, Logan Ryan) and edge-rushers (Nick Perry, Mario Addison, Jabaal Sheard). All will be grossly overpaid. Many will be busts.
"Three, four years ago, you'd look at the free-agent market and there were a lot of (quality) guys out there," Roseman said. "But there aren't as many starters (this year). There aren't as may blue-chip players as there have been in the past, because of how teams have gotten to their guys early (and re-signed them."
The draft is a crapshoot, but so is free agency. Think Nnamdi Asomugha. Think Byron Maxwell. Think a lot of guys for a lot of teams who were paid a lot of money in free agency and weren't the same player with their new team that they were with their old team.
"You have to learn from things that happen in the past," Roseman said. "Not just things that we've done, but what's happened in the past (to other teams).
"It's nice to win press conferences in March. But we're trying to build something and we don't want to be in a situation where we're signing a guy now and two years from now, we're sending out a press release telling you he's a cap casualty."
The future isn't now for the Eagles. It's two or three or four years down the road, when they hope Wentz will develop into a franchise quarterback and they'll have put a top-notch supporting cast around him, mainly, but not exclusively, through the draft.
"We're trying to build this thing around a young quarterback and get some continuity," Roseman said.
"That's our priority."
@Pdomo
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