Making Sense of Eagles' Desire to Add Byron Jones
Free agency is now two weeks away, beginning March 18.
The Eagles have about $44 million to go shopping. They won’t spend it all, but they could spend most of it on a big-name free agent, such as cornerback Byron Jones.
That is the name being floated. Jones I probably the best free agent corner that will enter the market, so the competition for his services will be fierce. The price tag will be steep, somewhere the thinking is in the $17 million per year range for about four years.
Jones is exactly what the Eagles need – a true number one cornerback who won’t turn 28 until late September. He is everything the Eagles have tried to find the past, well, it feels like forever.
Finding a shutdown cornerback, whether through free agency or the draft, has been this franchise’s Achilles’ heel.
Remember Chip Kelly’s one year at the draft helm in 2015 when he took JaCorey Shepherd and Randall Evans five picks apart in the sixth round? How about Brandon Boykin in the fourth round of 2012 and Curtis Marsh in the third round of 2011?
The Eagles have exhausted plenty of resources in the draft, particularly lately and have not gotten it right. Why, just in the last three years, they took Sidney Jones in the second round and Rasul Douglas in the third round of 2017 then added Avonte Maddox in the fourth round of 2018. In 2017, they sent a third-round pick to the Bills for Ronald Darby.
The only time the Eagles seemed to get it right was when they landed Jalen Mills in the seventh round of 2016 and, to a lesser extent, Jordan Poyer in the seventh round in 2013. Poyer never made it in Philly but as gone on to a nice career in Cleveland and now Buffalo.
Both players are solid, but far from number one material.
Even free agency has been a slog finding a week in, week out reliable and consistent corner. Nnamdi Asomugha was a bust when he signed on in 2011 and Byron Maxwell was a dud when he arrived in 2015.
Signing Jones would put a big dent in the Eagles’ wallet and would seem to contradict what general manager Howie Roseman said last week at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. Away from the podium, Roseman met with the local contingent inside the Indiana Convention Center and told us:
“I don’t think we have to go to the top of the market on anything. I think we have to combine free agency and the draft and also how we want to build our team for 2020 and 2021 and try to figure out the best avenues to do that. I think the biggest mistake we can make is saying that we have to do something and get in a position where we don’t set boundaries and do something that hamstrings us going forward.”
Yet here we are, reports galore that the Eagles want Jones despite his price tag.
It’s a price tag that, if the Eagles want to do right by safety Malcolm Jenkins and pay him what he is worth, could cause hard feelings.
Perhaps Roseman takes a more prudent approach and spreads owner Jeffrey Lurie’s money around a bit, and shops in aisle two of the market. Players such as Bradley Robey, Trae Waynes and Eli Apple would probably be in that aisle.
Then maybe Roseman has some money left to sign a safety, such as Ha Ha Clinton-Dix or Tony Jefferson.
Or re-sign running back Jordan Howard, search for a high-end linebacker.
There are endless ways to spend Lurie’s dough.
This way, you get several players for the price of one.
What you don’t get is a true number one cornerback, the way Jones would be.
“Every team has positions of need, we have positions of need, and we go do something that we don’t feel really good about then we compound the problem,” said Roseman. “Ideally, there’s someone in free agency who is the perfect player at a perfect position, then we go get him and go into a draft and pick the best player. Ideally, we go into the draft and we’re picking at 21 and the perfect player at the perfect position is there, but it’s probably not going to work that way.”
So Roseman will likely go off script and load up a big offer for Jones.
