Five Eagles free agents who won’t be back in 2022

Eagles defensive Derek Barnett

This one, regardless of what you feel about Derek Barnett, has to sting a little. No one likes to see first-round draft choices land in the ‘bust’ category’, especially when they’re on your side.

If things go according to plan, your favorite football team won’t be picking in the top 15 that often. Things happen though. Every franchise will experience down years at some point, and that means, when the bottom of the barrel falls out from time to time and any particular franchise finds itself in a position to take one of the best prospects in the NFL Draft’s first round, you have to make it count.

Sadly, every first-round draft choice that the Eagles have taken from 2017 to 2020 is nearing the area of being a disappointment. Jalen Reagor probably isn’t going to pan out. Andre Dillard lost his job to a rugby star that never played football before 2018, and the 14th-overall selection in 2017’s draft, Derek Barnett, is known more for what he’s done wrong in an Eagles jersey than anything he ever did right.

And, to make matters worse, those highlight-reel moments have been so few and far between that the general consensus from most of the Philly faithful is the Birds could have moved on from Derek Barnett a year ago rather than honor a fifth-year option he had in his rookie deal.

No one would have blinked had that happened, but here we are, one year later, and it appears that Derek’s time in Philly is running out. He won’t be back in 2022.