Philadelphia Eagles Offseason Is Low Risk, High Fear

Here in the Northeast, winter should be ending soon. Just not for Philly fans.

Another dark cloud has loomed and lingered in a Philadelphia sports history that has been chock full of them. Yet somehow, the franchise which has teased its fans the most and has gone the longest without a title remains the one that continues to string the city along.

And so far this winter, the Eagles seem to be afraid to leave their house and find salvation.

After going all-in at the table and losing his Chip(s), it seems apparent that the Birds’ brass is choosing comfort over contending this time around.

The problem is that the problem wasn’t the gamble itself.

However, after three years of a power-hungry outsider in Chip Kelly, the low-key, non-confrontational owner Jeffrey Lurie has seemingly decided to merge back onto the road more traveled. One that finds Howie Roseman back in charge of personnel again, even with his track record of identifying talent sketchy at best.

Speaking of questionable resumes, by re-signing Sam Bradford, the Eagles have likely already resigned themselves to being irrelevant for at least another season. And by not allowing him to hit free agency, they showed irrational fear. That somehow, an injury and mistake-prone quarterback who has never guided his team to a winning record — much less the playoffs — after six seasons would command top dollar in the open market.

So it ultimately boomerangs back to this: After years of playing it safe with company man Andy Reid — whose game planning was as consistent as his canned post game comments and ill-advised timeouts and challenges — Lurie decided to throw caution to the wind and hire the innovative Kelly. When both his innovation and his anti-authoritarianism grew stale, he went back to his comfort zone, replanting Roseman as the GM and hiring the company man’s right hand of Doug Pederson to coach.

Bingo! Harmony restored in the City of Brotherly Love.

(Certainly it couldn’t help to watch Reid take his new team to the playoffs twice in three years — perhaps some seller’s remorse?)

By re-signing Sam Bradford, the Eagles have likely already resigned themselves to being irrelevant for at least another season. And by not allowing him to hit free agency, they showed irrational fear.

Thus, we’re left with three assumptions for these low-risk, high panic moves:

1. They have revisited the definition of insanity. Expecting a system that didn’t succeed for 14 years to miraculously work (and yes, if you didn’t win the Super Bowl, you didn’t ultimately succeed). Expecting a grossly underachieving quarterback for six years to figure it out in his seventh. Expecting a rookie head coach (and another former mediocre play caller) to help him figure it out.
2. They are satisfied with simply satisfactory. Profits continue to pour in. Rear ends continue to fill the Lincoln Financial seats and callers continue to debate every move and non-move on talk shows, if for no other reason than it’s still better than the area alternatives by default.
3. They’re playing possum and Roseman suddenly has a couple tricks up his sleeve come draft day. Because signing an average quarterback to an elite salary on top of all the other offseason extensions has essentially negated the chance to land any top tier free agents, so the magic will need to occur on that day only.

The glass half full approach from the resident optimists is that there is a level of stability with the roster. The realists retort, why do you want stability from an underachieving team? Why not last year instead with proven commodities in Jeremy Maclin, LeSean McCoy and Evan Mathis? Because prioritizing culture instead sure didn’t pan out.

One of the luxuries of today’s NFL is that a team can go from average to great pretty rapidly with the right offseason moves, especially if a franchise quarterback is already in place. Just ask last season’s Panthers.

For all the faults that the Kelly Era presented, the courage to take risks to go from good to great wasn’t one of them. He just happened to roll the wrong dice.

Say what you want about the other teams in town – mainly the Phillies and Sixers – who are regularly accused of tanking. They are at least beginning with the end in mind while the Birds remain stuck in the middle.

And a strategy to stay the course with a 7-9 team is not much of a strategy at all.