Eagles Sign Andrew Adams, Bring Back Hassan Ridgeway; What's Next?

Philadelphia had been quiet in free agency until making two moves to add inventory at safety and defensive tackle

Four days after free agency began, the Eagles finally used some of their limited resources and jumped into the market, signing safety Andrew Adams from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and bringing back defensive tackle Hassan Ridgeway on Thursday morning.

“We’re always looking for tough players, we’re always looking for high football IQ players, we’re always looking for players that are competitive, and we’re always looking for players that love ball,” said coach Nick Sirianni on a videoconference call Thursday afternoon. “Obviously, talent is the main thing…Talent’s the first thing then the second thing is the character of the player.”

Ridgeway was one of 12 unrestricted free agents Philadelphia let hit the market when the new league year began at 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

He has not been able to stay healthy since joining the Eagles in a trade during the 2019 NFL Draft. He has played just 14 games since then but has been productive in that time.

The Eagles needed to add some depth along the D-line after tackle Malik Jackson was released on Wednesday night.

Adams, 28, is a newcomer, and safety like, defensive tackle, is a position where inventory was needed, with Rodney McLeod’s status for opening day up in the air after a late-season torn ACL, and Marcus Epps, K’Von Wallace, and Grayland Arnold the other safeties on the roster at the moment.

Undrafted out of the University of Connecticut in 2016, Adams spent two seasons with the New York Giants, playing in 30 games with 17 starts.

The last three years have been spent with the Bucs, winning a Super Bowl ring with them last year. Adams was mostly a special team player in Tampa last year with just 23 snaps (two percent) on defense, but he played more on defense in previous seasons, starting 11 games in 2019 and 53 percent of the defensive snaps.

It was a muted start to free agency for the Eagles without much money to spend as general manager Howie Roseman needed to restructure seven contracts to get a few million below the cap number of $182.5M.

“We’re not in the same position we’ve been in years past with our cap situation but we’re hopeful that this is just a short period of time that we’re like that and we move on,” said Roseman during a videoconference on Thursday afternoon. “Going forward we’ll have the flexibility back to be able to do that. We are excited about the amount of draft picks we have. Not only to draft players but also because they give you capital to go out and be aggressive if you wanted to be and give you options.”

Roseman said that the team is constantly monitoring the market with an eye to possibly being able to do more as free agency progresses.

“Every day we’re meeting about the players that are available, we’re talking about the players that are available with our personnel staff, with our front office staff, with our coaching staff, and we’re looking to see what the fits will be,” said the GM. 

“We’re looking for guys we think fit our scheme, we think fit our culture and have an opportunity to be here as we build this thing back. If there’s an opportunity to improve our team, we’ll look at that if there’s an opportunity to do that. If the fit’s right, we’ll do it.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s EagleMaven. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.