The Philadelphia Eagles will not be a good football team until they learn to build from within.
Free agency is right around the corner, which is always an exciting time for football fans. There are few things more exhilarating than finding out your favorite team has just signed that big-time superstar every NFL team had been pursuing. But even though free agency can be fun, the Philadelphia Eagles need to worry about the draft more so than throwing big money around on proven veterans.
Every time the Eagles go crazy in free agency, they flop.
Last offseason, the Eagles signed star running back DeMarco Murray after leading the league in rushing for the Dallas Cowboys the year before. The Eagles were expecting him to be the same player he was in 2014, but that didn’t happen. Murray was one of the worst players on the team in 2015, averaging a pathetic 3.6 yards per carry. The Eagles benched Murray towards the end of the season and now he’s trying to make a return to the Cowboys.
The Eagles also signed cornerback Byron Maxwell last offseason, who, contrary to popular belief, actually played well in 2015. The issue with Maxwell is the six-year, $63 million contract the Eagles signed him to. By no stretch of the imagination is Maxwell worth that amount of money and I will not be surprised if the Eagles end up regretting that deal down the road, if they don’t already.
And let’s not forget about the 2011 offseason.
Philadelphia spent big money on names such as Nnamdi Asomugha, Jason Babin, Ronnie Brown, Cullen Jenkins and, last but certainly not least, the man who dubbed the Eagles the “Dream Team” during that offseason, Vince Young.
Eagles
The Eagles’ best offseasons are the ones where they don’t spend a lot of money, which is exactly what they need to do this offseason. They seem to be on the right path thus far by locking up home-grown talents such as Zach Ertz, Lane Johnson and Vinny Curry to long-term deals and it won’t be long until Fletcher Cox gets a new contract of his own.
The common denominator with each of those players is the fact that they were all drafted and groomed by the Eagles. Great football teams are built through the draft and that’s the route the Eagles need to take if they want to get back to their winning ways.
A big reason why the Eagles hired Doug Pederson as head coach was so they could make a return to the wonder years of the Andy Reid era. If that truly is the case, they need to conduct themselves in the offseason like they did when Reid was the head honcho, which means building internally and not through free agency.
For every Malcolm Jenkins, there is a Nnamdi Asomugha. The Eagles cannot afford to spend the big bucks on players who may or may not work out. Rather, they need to worry about bringing in younger, cheaper players who will.
That is the only way the Eagles will become great again.