Philadelphia Eagles: Howie Roseman’s bad choices overshadow recent hits

1. Good or bad, the Philadelphia Eagles gave Howie Roseman carte blanche.

Roseman’s so-called expertise at roster building helped bring the Lombardi Trophy to Philadelphia for the first time ever. It also earned him celebrity status in the ‘City of Brotherly Love’ and at a national level. Having the benefit of the doubt, he started taking chances that would have landed most other general managers in hot water had they not worked, but since they did, people were willing to look past questionable moves like drafting Sidney Jones and defensive end Derek Barnett in 2017.

Among the other things that weren’t working in Roseman’s favor included Jeffery’s hefty raise, which was a good idea at the time but has since backfired. Giving Bradham a five-year $40 million contract in 2018 was also a head-scratching decision the team ended up regretting after just two seasons.

Around the same time, Roseman started re-signing seemingly almost every old player the team had. Although organizations must reward their best players, their salary cap is finite, which means that there is only a limited number of players a team can keep. Roseman didn’t seem to care and handed extensions out left and right. How did he do it? By giving players big signing bonuses and spreading the cap hit in later years, a strategy that has since come back to bite him.

The Eagles are currently projected to be $67 million over the cap in 2021, and in order for them to get out of the red, they will have to make some tough roster decisions next offseason such as asking some players to take some pay cuts and parting ways with others.