About Eagles Free Agency Approach and Coaching Hires
INDIANAPOLIS – Coaches and roster-building were two heavily-touched on topics when Eagles general manager Howie Roseman and head coach Doug Pederson at the NFL Scouting Combine earlier in the week.
Roseman gave an indication that the Eagles could be ready to swerve from their recent philosophy of handing out one-year deals to players in order to fill in the gaps on the roster.
It makes sense, really, considering the Eagles gave one-year deals to mostly aging players in order to make up for the lack of draft picks they had the past two seasons.
They made just five selections in the past two drafts. This year they are expected to have 10.
“Just sitting here now and feeling like we’re going to have 10 picks, and we need that amount of guys,” said Roseman. “Now when we look at it, I think the scenario changes a little bit, in terms of, if we can get the right free agents, we’re not a mode now where maybe we try to find the undervalued older guys that we tried to find over the last couple of years, and going forward, we’re trying to build this over a period of time, we’re not kind of in this one-year window.
"We talked in January about looking at this, 2020, 2021 and 2022 in this three-year period who are part of it, I guess kind of similar to how we looked at free agency in maybe 2016 and ’17."
Translation: The Eagles could be poised to deliver big-money deals for several years to a player or two in free agency similar to contracts they gave guard Brandon Brooks and safety Rodney McLeod in 2016.
Still, the Eagles have about $50 million to spend under the salary cap, and they want to be careful how that is allocated as they look beyond the 2020 season.
“I think the one thing we have to be careful of is the amount of cap room we have this year, and then how it’s affecting next year and the years going forward because we don’t want to lose flexibility totally by doing that,” said Roseman.
“We’re hopeful that if we go into the free-agent market that maybe we’re signing guys that are more core guys than more one-or-two-year guys, and we look at it from building our team over a two-or-three-year perspective as opposed to just kind of this one-year window.”
As for the new assistant coaching structure, Pederson said he is more comfortable with that arrangement of not having an offensive coordinator. He is, after all, the offensive coordinator because he calls the plays, and that is not something he is willing to relinquish.
Offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland is the run-game coordinator, Press Taylor will be the pass-game coordinator, and Rich Scangarello will be the senior offensive assistant.
The Eagles are the third team use a set up such as this, joining the Rams and 49ers.
“I thought long and hard about this. That’s why I took my time this offseason with these decisions and with Rich, putting him in a senior offensive position, and promoting Press to pass-game coordinator,” said Pederson. “I really felt that in order for Press to grow I’ve got to give him more as a coach. I’ve got to put more on his plate. I still want him in the QBs room. I still want him to be around Carson and the guys. He’s done an outstanding job there.
“But at the same time, I want him to have more of his fingerprints on game plans. And Rich comes in and he helps bridge the gap with coach Stoutland as the run-game coordinator and now Press. Bringing all of those pieces together, along with myself, and having such a collaborative game-plan approach allows us to have a better sense of the game-plan we go into each game with. But ultimately it comes down to me on game day with calling the plays.”
It sounds as if Scangarello will be the lynchpin of the group.
“Having Rich now, who’s been around Kyle (Shanahan) and his offenses in Atlanta and San Francisco, and being around quarterbacks like Matt Ryan and (Jimmy) Garoppollo, and then having coordinator experience in Denver last year, for me, it’s very intriguing to bring in a guy who is going to help Carson (Wentz), No. 1, and is going to help our offense,” said Pederson.
“He’s going to be a guy, it’s won’t solely be his responsibility, but allowing us to take our offense to a different level. That’s something we weren’t as good at last year or the last couple of seasons.”
Pederson said he became familiar with Scangarello as he sought to fill out his staff.
“That whole search is a funny business,” said Pederson. “When you start talking to other coaches, whether they’re head coaches in this league, and you start talking to them and certain names come up. His name came up, so I did a little bit more of a deep dive with him. I really felt he was a guy of interest.
“I love the fact that that he has old West Coast (offense) roots. He and I hit it off right away from the standpoint of offensive play design. I really felt comfortable having him in our building.”
