The Eagles tried several different ways to spin their underwhelming offseason.
There was the one where Eagles general manager Howie Roseman said the Eagles had in fact signed free agents – last fall.
That’s when the Eagles gave out contract extensions worth as much as $200 million combined to Dallas Goedert, Jordan Mailata, Josh Sweat and Avonte Maddox, before those players hit free agency, thus saving money on the 2022 salary cap.
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There was another where the Eagles tried trading for Calvin Ridley, who was suspended for the season for gambling. Then they tried signing wide receiver Christian Kirk and safety Marcus Williams, among others. They came away empty.
Instead, the Eagles landed slot receiver Zach Pascal, considered a low-budget signing. On defense, the Eagles splurged on pass rusher Haason Reddick and signed a starting linebacker in Kyzir White.
“We’re building,” Roseman told a small group of reporters at the NFL owners meetings on Monday. “We’re not in a go-for-it situation, all-in situation. We have too many resources. We have too many good young players to be like that.”
That sentiment included quarterback Jalen Hurts.
Roseman doubled down (actually, tripled) on committing to Hurts as the starter, repeating what he said when the season ended and at the NFL scouting combine on March 1.
That included giving Hurts “whatever we can to give him a chance to reach his potential.”
Hurts must be saying to himself: “Any time now, Howie.”
All the while, Roseman looked into trading for star quarterbacks Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson. And the Eagles have been doing the Pro Day tours for all the top quarterbacks in the draft.
That reportedly included Eagles quarterback coach Brian Johnson taking Pitt’s Kenny Pickett out to dinner. “Hey, Kenny, we’re not really interested in you, but enjoy the steak.”
Then again, Roseman and team chairman and CEO Jeffrey Lurie weren’t there, unlike in 2016, when they took Carson Wentz out for dinner in North Dakota.
Yet through the doublespeak, Roseman did make two things clear as to the direction of the Eagles’ offseason:
For one, as Roseman said, the offseason is not close to being over. While most of the top free agents are long gone, no general manager has made more trades than Roseman over the past several years.
Roseman will often bring up how he signed running back LeGarrette Blount in May of 2017, traded for cornerback Ronald Darby that August and running back Jay Ajayi that October.
The Eagles won the Super Bowl that season.
Maybe he’ll find a trade partner and land a star wide receiver, or defensive back. And he could even use left tackle Andre Dillard to make that happen.
Most importantly, Roseman stressed the 10 draft picks, including three first-rounders. In all, the Eagles have four picks in the top 51, and five in the top 83.
This leads to the biggest differences from years past.
“When you have the amount of high picks we have, we don’t want to block these players from playing time,” Roseman said. “We don’t want to get into a situation where we’re drafting guys in the first, second, sometimes even the third round, and they don’t have an ability to play, (and so) you’re wasting a (rookie) contract year.
“We’d hate to draft three guys and go, ‘Redshirt, redshirt, redshirt (because) you’re blocked here, here, and here.’ “
Roseman made it seem like the Eagles will be using all three of those first-round picks at No. 15, 16 and 19, and they likely will be relied on to play right away.
Sure, it’s possible that Roseman might use one of those first-round picks to trade back later in the first round, or even into the second round, in order to get a high draft pick in 2023.
In the past, the Eagles would sign a veteran in order for the draft pick to grow for a season. In 2019, for example, they brought back an aging Jason Peters after drafting Dillard in the first round.
They had veterans in front of Hurts, Milton Williams, Landon Dickerson and even Miles Sanders in the years when they were drafted.
But that’s not going to be the case this year, especially at cornerback, safety and wide receiver.
Of course, that means the Eagles need to draft the right players, like DeVonta Smith, as opposed to the wrong ones, like Jalen Reagor, the first-round pick in 2020.
If not, the Eagles’ best-laid plans will fall by the wayside.
Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on Twitter @Mfranknfl.
