PHILADELPHIA − The Eagles might not be done trading, even after getting pass rusher Robert Quinn from the Chicago Bears on Wednesday.
Only now it could involve them selling by the NFL trade deadline next Tuesday in order to fill the hole in the middle of their seven-round draft in 2023.
The Eagles are well-positioned at the top of the 2023 draft with two first-round picks (one of them, from the 2-5 New Orleans Saints, could end up in the top-10). They also have a second-round pick and a third-round pick.
They don’t have another pick until the seventh round, where they have two (the second came from Minnesota in the Jalen Reagor trade).
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The Eagles traded their fourth-round pick to Chicago for Quinn. Their fifth-round pick went to the Saints for safety Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, who was acquired on Aug. 30. The sixth-round pick went to Jacksonville for safety Josiah Scott, when he was acquired in the spring of 2021.
So it’s hard to see the Eagles using one of their Day 2 picks to get a running back like the Browns’ Kareem Hunt or the Rams’ Cam Akers; or a third safety like the Patriots’ Jabrill Peppers or the Ravens’ Chuck Clark.
But the Eagles could acquire a player like that by trading one of their current players, such as left tackle Andre Dillard or backup quarterback Gardner Minshew, straight up. Or the Eagles could use Dillard or Minshew to get a mid-round draft pick back.
It’s more likely that the Eagles will hold on to both players.
The Eagles sent a message to the rest of the team and to the NFL that they’re going all-in on a deep playoff run by acquiring Quinn, who is tied for sixth among active players with 102 career sacks. Quinn, who’s 32 and in his 12th season, had 18.5 sacks last season.
Quinn only had 1 sack in 7 games this season, and he will likely have to fit into a rotation at defensive end with Brandon Graham, Josh Sweat and Haason Reddick.
That will likely mean playing less than the 68% of the snaps that he was seeing in Chicago. Quinn said he’s fine with that.
“I’m still trying to just get a full grasp on what’s happening, the transition,” Quinn said Thursday. “I want to come in and do my part. They’ve been rocking and rolling before I got here. I don’t want to mess anything up, just try to add whatever I can to help make this team better and basically stay out of the way.
“Wherever and however they decide to play me, I’ll basically do whatever they ask.”
Depth is critical throughout the lineup for a team playing for a championship. Dillard, the Eagles’ first-round pick in 2019, has starting experience, and he could fill in if starting left tackle Jordan Mailata gets hurt. Mailata already missed one full game and most of another with a shoulder injury. At the time, Dillard was on injured reserve, so Jack Driscoll played left tackle.
Right tackle Lane Johnson missed the second half of the Eagles’ game against the Cowboys on Oct. 16 with a concussion. Johnson was cleared to play Thursday. Behind Dillard and Driscoll, the Eagles are very inexperienced at tackle.
Dillard is eligible for free agency after the season, but there are still 11 games left, plus the playoffs, so the Eagles might be better off keeping him even if it means losing him for no compensation in free agency.
It’s the same way at quarterback.
Jalen Hurts has played every snap this season. But Hurts missed two games last season, one because of an ankle injury, the other to rest in the season finale although his ankle was still an issue then. Minshew, who has started 22 games in his NFL career, replaced Hurts and led the Eagles to a critical win over the Jets on Dec. 5.
If the Eagles trade Minshew, the only other quarterback on the roster is Ian Book, a fourth-round pick in 2021 who only got into one game last season with the New Orleans Saints. That didn’t go well as he threw 2 interceptions.
When the Eagles won the Super Bowl in 2017, they had an established quarterback as the backup in Nick Foles, who ended up taking over when starter Carson Wentz tore his ACL after leading the Eagles to an 11-2 start.
Quinn provides the same kind of insurance on the defensive line.
Graham is 34 and the Eagles have limited his snaps to about 45%. Reddick has played 64% of the snaps and Sweat has played 68%. It’s likely that Reddick and Sweat will play a little less, and that Quinn will play a lot less than the 68% he played this season in Chicago.
But it will benefit the Eagles in that all four should be fresh, not only in the fourth quarter of a close game, but as the season wears on.
“It is scary because if you can make it to the fourth quarter and you’re still feeling like you’re in the first quarter, that’s advantage us,” Graham said. “The O-linemen got to play the whole game.”
Johnson can attest to that as an offensive lineman playing every snap.
“I like seeing them tired,” he said about pass rushers. “It (expletive) makes me happy when they’re tired because they don’t live in the same world that we do.”
That’s why the Eagles need to keep those depth players, not trade them.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.
