The Eagles are gearing up for the NFL Combine in Indianapolis as the first leg of their title defense begins and the team is going to have some tough decisions to make over the next coming weeks. Nobody knows that better than Howie Roseman. The Eagles general manager who has seemingly become a wizard when it comes to crafting trades and constructing contracts with free agents might be facing one of his most challenging off-season’s to date.
The general manager recognizes that his roster, although in a fantastic spot with a lot of young talent, will look different and that the team will be unable to keep everyone.
“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.”
Roseman also asked the fans on Tuesday to have patience as the offseason has many stages and the roster won’t be finalized for quite some time.
“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.”
Will the Eagles Re-Sign Baun?
The biggest question entering this offseason is surrounding linebacker Zack Baun who had a season for the ages. The reason why it’s such a pertinent question is because he plays a position the Eagles historically have not spent a lot of money at to retain or acquire talent at that position. Roseman and the team hit the lottery when the signed the former Saint to an unassuming $3.5 million contract in the offseason. Baun exploded onto the season learning a new position after primarily being a special teams player for New Orleans after being a third round pick out of Wisconsin.
It was a perfect storm for Baun and the Eagles and Roseman credited all involved for making the signing one of the best in the league.
“He [Baun] was a player that everyone did a lot of work on coming out of Wisconsin. Knew his tools and what he has to play with and the intangibles he has and he was looking for an opportunity to play. We brought in Vic [Fangio] and seeing some of the guys he worked with and seeing some parallels there. You “You have to give a ton of credit to Zack, the work he did, playing new position for first time in NFL, out coaching staff to put him in position to make great plays. Obviously really proud of all those people.”
Roseman eluded that his mindset and the front office might be changing regarding their past philosophy regarding the position.
“To put us in the box, and say we aren’t going to pay because historically we haven’t done that, part of what we do is evolve,” Roseman said. “[We] look at things and see how things are affecting our team, the league and seeing our place in that.”
Others like Mekhi Becton, Milton Williams and Josh Sweat all increased their value on the open market tenfold and the Eagles will all but surely be unable to retain all three and Baun with the expected price tags for some of the key players on the Super Bowl winning roster.
Tush Push Controversy Part II
For the second straight offseason, the Eagles well designed “”Brotherly Shove” has been brought into the spotlight as it was reported on Tuesday that the Green Bay Packers submitted a proposal to the NFL’s competition committee to ban the play according to Dianna Russini.
There have been many discussions about the play and whether it’s either fair or an actual “football play” since the Eagles introduced the highly successful shove of humanity. Head coach Nick Sirianni wasn’t too pleased when he heard about the submission filed.
“I see stuff like ‘it’s automatic.’ It’s almost insulting. We work so hard on that play. The amount of coaching, and fundamentals, how the players deal with it. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve practiced it. We saw a team fail at it in the Championship games. It’s a skill our team has because of our players, the way our coaches coach it. We put so much time into it. The fact it’s a successful play for the Eagles and people wanna take it away is a little unfair.”
Sirianni’s mention of the players involved with the play is key. What other quarterback squats 600 pounds like Jalen Hurts? Quarterbacks like Matthew Stafford of Jarred Goff can’t run the play and be successful because they don’t have the same physical strength as Hurts. Ironically, the Packers succeeded with a “tush push” of their own against the Eagles in the Wild Card round.
Sirianni also mentioned that it not only allows his team to stay on the field after converting on a key 3rd down or 4th down, but it also can be a building block offensively.
“It comes down to how your players handle it with the fundamentals. We figured out ways on how to practice it and the compliments that come off of it that can create explosive plays. The fact that it’s an automatic thing, we worked really hard at it and our guys are very talented and it’s a bit insulting when they say it’s automatic.”
The head coach also noted that it wasn’t “automatic” for his team.
“The competition committee will do a good job looking into everything. It wasn’t 100% for us this year. We missed some two-point conversions from the one, we missed on some third downs and some fourth downs. We were in the 80% range of what we were. Just because it’s a successful play for us doesn’t mean it should go away.”
The NFL Scouting Combine gets underway on Thursday which will allow teams one of the best ways to evaluate prospects prior to the draft.
Mandatory Credit: Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
