5 thoughts about Howie Roseman's big Sunday of trades

5 thoughts about Howie Roseman's big Sunday of trades

Maybe you were at the beach or at a barbecue on one of the last Sundays of the summer.

Howie Roseman was on the phone.

The Eagles’ general manager was busy on Sunday, pulling off three separate trades in the span of about 10 hours. First, he traded for QB Sam Howell, then he traded for OT Fred Johnson and then he shipped OL Darian Kinnard to Green Bay.

Here are five thoughts about Roseman’s busy Sunday:

1. With his three trades on Sunday, Roseman has now pulled off five trades this month and we still have a week left in August.

A recap of these five trades:

• Sent Darian Kinnard to Green Bay for a 2027 sixth-round pick

• Acquired Fred Johnson from Jacksonville for a 2026 seventh-round pick

• Acquired Sam Howell and a 2026 sixth-round pick from Minnesota for a 2026 fifth and 2027 seventh

• Acquired John Metchie III and a 2026 sixth-round pick from Houston for Harrison Bryant and 2026 fifth

• Acquired Jakorian Bennett from Las Vegas for Thomas Booker IV

OK, so let’s simplify on this into two categories: What the Eagles got and what they gave up.

Eagles got: Jakorian Bennett, John Metchie III, Sam Howell, Fred Johnson, two 2026 sixth-round picks, 2027 sixth-round pick

Eagles gave up: Darian Kinnard, Harrison Bryant, Thomas Booker, two 2026 fifth-round picks, 2026 seventh-round pick, 2027 seventh-round pick

After all that, the Eagles are still projected to have 12 picks in the 2026 draft, but there’s a very good chance Howie is not done trading just yet.

2. It seems like there was a good chance the Eagles would have pulled off the trade for Sam Howell even if Tanner McKee didn’t have an injury, but McKee’s injury probably solidified the idea for Roseman. If McKee isn’t ready to play in the opener, the Eagles simply couldn’t go into that game with Kyle McCord as their backup. Maybe the sixth-round pick from Syracuse is still worth developing behind the scenes but he wasn’t ready to be one injury away from playing in a meaningful game.

Eventually, Howell is going to be the Eagles’ third-string quarterback and that’s impressive depth. Howell isn’t great but he’s 24 years old and has 18 NFL starts under his belt. Howell spent the 2023 season as the Commanders’ starter and while it didn’t go well, he was put in a rough spot on a bad team. He ended up leading the NFL in passing attempts with 612 and sacks with 65. That’s a tough ask for a fifth-round pick in his second NFL season.

And against the Eagles, Howell played very well even though he went 0-2. He completed 68 of 93 passes (73%) for 687 yards with 5 touchdowns and 1 interception in 2 games against the Birds. He had a passer rating of 107.2.

3. The trade to get back Fred Johnson was necessary after watching this preseason. The Eagles brought in Kendall Lamm and Matt Pryor this offseason and neither of them looked very good at tackle during training camp or the preseason.

Remember that second preseason game when the offense finished with just 88 yards against the Browns? That was because the offensive line was so bad. The O-line depth was a big issue after losing its top two backups from the 2024 season — Johnson left for Jacksonville in free agency and the Eagles also lost Tyler Steen as a backup because he has replaced Mekhi Becton in the starting lineup.

There’s obviously still going to be a drop-off from Lane Johnson or Jordan Mailata to Fred Johnson, but it’s about making that gap as small as possible. The Eagles’ offense loves to operate with their tackles on islands and when they have to start giving a ton of help to one side, it really changes the complexion of the offense. Fred Johnson had some ups and downs in 2024 but was pretty steady, and his game against the Bengals (and Trey Hendrickson) was really impressive.

4. I don’t know if all of these trades are going to work out. No one does. But the process is impressive and Eagles fans should be happy they have Howie Roseman in charge of this team. He’s committed to improving the roster however he can, but he’s also committed to the overall health of the organization’s assets. He has been striking a good balance here.

Entering this month, Roseman was expected to have 13 draft picks in 2026 and even after all this, he’s still expected to have 12. All those picks are simply assets. And back in late July, he did a good job explaining his process and the health of the organization.

“Yeah, I think that you got to look that again, just the same way we look at the resource allocation question,” Roseman said on July 23. “For us, it’s the picks that we have. We have a lot of picks next year, we’re expecting to have 13 picks in next year’s draft, and those can be used to improve the team this year. They can be used to improve the team next year. They could be used to improve the team in the third year.

“I think from our perspective, whatever opportunity comes about that can improve this football team. I mean, if there’s an incremental difference on a player who’s the 90th guy from a guy who’s on the street, we’re going to make that change and we owe that to our fans, we owe that to our players, we owe that to Jeffrey (Lurie) to do whatever we can to keep improving the talent level on the team. The way that I look at it is that we have a lot of young players coming down the pipeline that we want to keep in Philadelphia, but we want to win and we want to win right now.

“We want to win next year and we want to win going forward. That’s my job to try to balance it and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure that that happens.”

5. Because they traded Darian Kinnard for a 2027 sixth-round pick, it was pretty obvious he was the odd man out after the Eagles brought back Fred Johnson. Some general managers really devalue picks in future years and it’s probably because they’re fighting to keep their jobs on a year-to-year basis. But Roseman doesn’t devalue those future picks, at least not to the level we see from some other GMs. Obviously, Roseman has plenty of job security, which allows him to worry about the long-term health of the organization as opposed to trying to save his hide. After giving away a Day 3 pick in 2027 in the Howell trade, Roseman recouped it by sending Kinnard to Green Bay.

The Eagles kept Kinnard on their 53-man roster all of last season but he played in just two games all season. In fact, the 25-year-old has played in three NFL games since being drafted in the fifth-round by the Chiefs in 2022. He has the same number of Super Bowl rings as he has career games. So congratulations to the Green Bay Packers on their upcoming Super Bowl LX victory.