Eagles Are Building Their Team the Right Way

Howie Roseman has done a great job of doing exactly what the Philadelphia Eagles need to do to ensure a positive future.

Building through the draft and re-signing key leaders and guys who contribute positively to the locker room is a great formula for success in the NFL. Roseman has received a nuclear amount of criticism in the past few years for his actions as general manager, especially when Chip Kelly was coach. His biggest failure might have been the Marcus Smith pick, but he even owned up to that. He’s turning things around.

He’s already re-signed a slew of key players such as Vinny Curry, Zach Ertz, Brent Celek and Lane Johnson, all of whom are former Eagles draft picks. It also sounds like there are plans to re-sign Fletcher Cox, arguably the most important player on the team. And most recently, Roseman gave Malcolm Jenkins a new deal, a clear defensive leader and locker room guy. Even though Jenkins wasn’t a draft pick, he has meshed very well in Philadelphia and will likely be a force on the defensive side of the ball for years to come.

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This is how many successful teams have been built over the years. The Packers and Seahawks are the biggest examples that come to mind. A large percentage of their team (including their top players) are home-grown talent, which allows them to build through the draft and take advantage of the value of rookie contracts. The Eagles have a lot of this home-grown talent, but before this offseason, they’ve tried too hard to fill in holes with expensive free agent contracts. This just isn’t how teams succeed.

Many times, this contracts will require a team to overpay a player for a long period of time, putting the team in a tough financial situation if the player doesn’t turn out to be a good fit. If you draft a player and after three or so years it’s determined he wasn’t a good fit, the team can just release him and suffer little to no financial setbacks because of how inexpensive most rookie contracts are.

Most of this is information you probably already knew, though. However, it’s important to reinforce this philosophy because too many people still don’t understand it. It seems that every time an expensive veteran is released by a team, a group of Eagles fans is already calling to sign the player (see Jahri Evans, James Laurinaitis and what seems like every free agent every year). It’s just a tireless and painful example of fans showing they don’t know what they’re talking about. I know sometimes it’s fans hopping on the bandwagon because it’s a name they’ve heard of, but there was a reason those players were cut. They’re not worth their contracts anymore, and they’ll probably be too expensive to be worth signing to a new deal. It’s just not worth it.

Free agency is still a month and a half or so away, but I don’t expect the Eagles to be too busy during that time period. It seems as though they’ve learned their lesson in not trying to make a big splash, because sometimes that can splash right back in your face.

Signing guys like DeMarco Murray and Byron Maxwell is great for preseason predictions and for looking at the team on paper, but how much did it actually add to the team? The Eagles could’ve saved a lot of money by simply signing cheaper options who would be only marginally less talented, or maybe would even be a better fit than those guys.

So before you immediately jump on the bandwagon to sign that next veteran that gets cut (such as Antonio Cromartie…please, what in god’s name makes you think he would be a smart signing?), take a seat and think for a minute. Is this player really going to help the team for the contract that he would likely receive?

The answer is almost always no.

Next: Salary Cap Increase Gives Eagles Financial Flexibility

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