Howie Roseman explains why this will be a different offseason

https://sports.yahoo.com/article/howie-roseman-explains-why-different-070000266.html

Howie Roseman explains why this will be a different offseason originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

INDIANAPOLIS — The Eagles are going to have some tough decisions in the coming weeks.

Howie Roseman knows that.

In fact, the Eagles’ general manager has known for some time that this offseason would be different. Last year, the Eagles saw free agency as a chance to target some key players. This year? It’s about maintenance, Roseman said.

“I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for us,” Roseman said at the NFL Scouting Combine on Tuesday. “We have challenges because we have a lot of good players and we have long-term contracts with a lot of our players who are in their prime. My expectations aren’t that we’re going to have to lose a lot of players and that means that there are excuses for next season. It’s just, it’s going to look different.”

After a Super Bowl run, the offseason arrived without much of a runway and free agency will unofficially begin on March 10 when the negotiating window opens. Before then, the Eagles will have exclusive negotiating rights with all of their own pending free agents.

On Tuesday, Roseman already admitted that the Eagles won’t be able to keep everyone.

Some of the Eagles’ primary pending free agents this offseason include Zack Baun, Milton Williams, Josh Sweat and Mekhi Becton. All of those players boosted their stock throughout the 2024 season, which might make it even tougher to keep them this offseason. And there are plenty of other free agents too and some other key decisions to make this offseason as the Eagles work to get back to the Super Bowl.

“We’re in a position now where every decision we make is going to affect something else,” Roseman said. “That doesn’t mean that I’m trying to lower expectations. Obviously, the goal remains the same. But how we do it is going to look different. I go back to last year. Obviously, we lost two of the greatest players to ever play for the Eagles (Jason Kelce and Fletcher Cox) so we had to figure out a way to compensate for that.

“We know we’re not going to be able to keep everyone. Certainly, we’d like to keep everyone. But at the end of the day, we’re going to have to make some decisions this year, next year, every year going forward to try to balance who are the guys we want to make every effort to keep, who are the guys we’d really like to keep but may have some better opportunities out there.”

A big key, Roseman said, will be continuing to rely on younger players. The Eagles were able to supplement their top-heavy roster in 2024 with key players producing on rookie deals. That, he said, will need to continue going forward.

Roseman said the Eagles talk internally about roster construction as a layer cake. They have the base that they keep adding to and keep adding to. But now they’re at the point where some of those layers have to come out.

“I think I would just ask our fans to just have patience throughout the offseason,” Roseman said. “The offseason doesn’t stop in free agency. The offseason doesn’t stop when the draft hits. The offseason, really for us, the talent acquisition season lasts up until the trade deadline. … We got a long way to go here to continue to add talent and continue to make decision and I’m excited for that.”

Can they keep Zack Baun?

One of the Eagles’ top priorities this offseason will to try to keep Zack Baun, who is coming off one of the best linebacker seasons in Eagles history.

The Eagles signed Baun to a one-year, $3.5 million contract as a free agent last March and then Baun ended up finishing fifth in Defensive Player of the Year voting. Baun was great during the regular season and made huge plays in the playoffs on the way to the Eagles’ winning Super Bowl LIX.

“Those are guys that you obviously want to keep,” Roseman said. “There’s no doubt about it. We’ll make a concerted effort to try to keep him here.”

The Eagles probably could have signed Baun at some point during the season but Roseman didn’t do any extensions during 2024. In the lead-up to Super Bowl week, the Eagles’ GM explained that decision was made because the Eagles didn’t want to disrupt a tight-knit locker room by creating jealously.

“We didn’t do any deals during the season, which probably could have prevented some of these problems,” Roseman said, “but we just didn’t feel that the timing was right.”

In the first four years of his career, Baun was mostly a special teams player with the Saints. It wasn’t until he got to Philadelphia and Vic Fangio made him a starting off-ball linebacker that Baun really took off. Because of that, it’s possible that Baun would take some sort of hometown discount to stay in Philadelphia but this could also be his one real chance to cash in as a free agent.

Roseman did push back against the idea that the Eagles won’t pay a linebacker simply because of their history.

“To put us in a box and to say we’re not going to pay because historically we haven’t done that, part of what we do is evolve,” Roseman said. “Look at things and see how things are affecting our team, how things are affecting our league and seeing our place in that.”

A trade for Myles Garrett?

The biggest question many Eagles fans have is about the possibility of trading for former Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett. While Browns GM Andrew Berry said he has no interest in trading Garrett, the 29-year-old All-Pro has already asked to be moved.

Roseman was asked specifically about Garrett on Tuesday.

“I’m not going to talk about anyone under contract with another team,” Roseman said. “One thing that I can promise our fans is that there will not be a player that’s available that we won’t study, that we won’t look at and see if it can help the team. Sometimes those opportunities work and you’re able to do that and sometimes they don’t.”

The Eagles have pulled off some blockbuster trades before. Most recently, during the 2022 draft, they were able to acquire A.J. Brown with a first-round pick. Whenever the Eagles think about trading away that type of resource for a player, there are parameters to keep in mind.

“Obviously, anytime that you’re talking about giving up a high pick and a lot of money for a player, it’s also gotta fit where you are as a team, it’s gotta fit where you are from a cap perspective,” Roseman said. “All those things have to match up. We look at all those. There’s a lot of attractive items out there. We spend a lot of time talking about every position and every good player and we’re selfish, we want everyone. But at the end of the day, it’s just not the position we’re in right now.”

A Cam Jurgens extension?

While the Eagles have plenty of pending free agents they’ll want to re-sign this offseason, they are also some candidates for extensions.

The primary candidate for an extension appears to be Pro Bowl center Cam Jurgens, who is now eligible for a new deal after playing out the first three years of his four-year rookie contract.

“Well, not trying to get into contract talks with anyone but I think for us, generally, we want to draft guys, we want to extend our own guys, especially the homegrown guys who’ve had success,” Roseman said. “They’re part of us. And so you’re always looking at those guys as the first layers. When we’re talking about some of the decisions we have to make, we’ve got to also look at some of the draft classes coming up and some of those guys that maybe are this year or maybe a year from now are going to warrant extensions.

“And we certainly don’t want to be in a position where we can’t sign some of our homegrown talent. Some of the things that we’re going to have to do this offseason are also going to be not only for this year, because obviously we want to compete at the highest level, but how can we put ourselves in position so that in 2026-27, we can keep as much of this core together?”

Based on the Eagles’ history of locking up their core players before they absolutely need to, it would make a lot of sense to see a Jurgens extension at some point this offseason.

https://sports.yahoo.com/article/howie-roseman-explains-why-different-070000266.html