Gearing Up for Start of Free Agency

Jason Kelce’s one-year, $14 million contract ate into the Eagles’ salary cap a bit.

He will count $6.499 million on the cap in 2022 a year after his cap charge was $5.574. It’s money well spent for a veteran center still on top of his game and one who is an Eagles icon.

Still, it was money spent and that leaves the Eagles just $17.2M under the cap, per underthecap.com.

Factor in that 10 draft picks – at least for now – will need to be paid, including possibly three first-rounders, and that doesn’t leave a lot of splurge room for GM Howie Roseman when free agency begins this week.

It certainly doesn’t help that Roseman’s kick-the-can-down-the-road style of contract management is catching up to him.

The Eagles have a dead money total of $36.4M, led by Malik Jackson’s $9.03M, Derek Barnett’s $7.2M, and Alshon Jefferey’s $5.4M. And Zach Ertz is still on the books for $3.5M.

Don’t expect Roseman to sit still, however, when the market officially opens on Wednesday.

Asked at the NFL Scouting Combine earlier this month how he differentiates between what he might be able to do in free agency with what he can get out of the draft, Roseman shed some light on positions he could potentially look to fill this week.

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“I think the order of operations matters here, right?” Roseman said. “So, you're talking about you'll have free agency, you'll have the opportunity to see where you are, but you also don't want to get into a situation where you don't take the best player, that you don't take a guy who's really good just because you addressed something in free agency.

“I think what free agency does is it allows us to check boxes so we don't feel the pressure to maybe feel like we have to do something, assuming that it works out in free agency, and that's kind of how we'll look at it.”

He didn’t name a player in particular, but the implication is that he will try to address a position where depth is currently lacking so the pressure to take a need rather than the best player available doesn’t force him to stray from his board.

A few positions seem to fit that philosophy:

Defensive end, safety, linebacker, and receiver.

Typically, the Eagles prefer to sign players coming off their first contracts, putting them in the age range between 25 and 27. Those are the players who usually cost more to sign, and it takes a commitment somewhere around three to four years for double-digit millions per year or close to double digits.

Safety Justin Reid could fit that profile. He had some issues with the coaching staff this past season in Houston, so that could be a red flag, though he is certainly the type of player that would help the back end of defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon’s defense.

The Eagles also like to dabble in one year, prove-it type contracts.

Safety Marcus Maye could fit here. He is coming off a torn Achilles’ in November.

Receiver JuJu Smith-Shuster may also be inclined to a one-year deal after having midseason shoulder surgery.

Another receiver who could fit the profile of a veteran the Eagles would like to add to their room is Allen Robinson. Though he is 29, he has had more than 1,000 yards receiving in two of his last three seasons.

It may take longer to get deals for one-year type players as they wait for their market to develop, or not. Such was the case last year with CB Steve Nelson, who wanted a multi-year deal but didn’t get one and settled for one year with the Eagles in the summer.

At linebacker, there is Green Bay’s De’Vondre Campbell, who has played with three teams already since entering the league as a fourth-round pick of the Falcons in 2016. He has played in all but five games since then with 86 starts. He’s twice had more than 100 tackles, including last year when he put up 146 for the Packers.

Campbell will turn 29 this summer but his highest base salary was just $2.025M in his final year with Atlanta in 2019.

MORE: Jason Kelce Announces He Will Play in 2022 - Sports Illustrated

Chandler Jones is a veteran pass rusher who has been linked to the Eagles, but at 32 a multi-year deal could be tough to come by, though he had 10.5 sacks for the Cardinals last year and has 107.5 of them in his 10-year career. He would make an excellent mentor for whichever edge rusher the Eagles select in the first round of the draft.

One thing the Eagle have in their favor in this year’s free agent shopping market is familiarity. Roseman has seen first-hand what head coach Nick Sirianni and Gannon want and need to be successful.

“When you look at the first year with a coaching staff and their willingness, especially this coaching staff, to take some of the guys that we have and say, ‘Let me see how this guy looks in my system,’ and now instead of having hypothetical situations you have tape on that, you have film on that and we can walk through, ‘All right, this is what we thought about this guy, this is how he fits,’ that's huge in terms of evaluating our own team, which is the first thing we have to do,” said Roseman.

“We have to evaluate our own team. Then you talk about those picks, but it's not just those picks. It's utilizing the cap space on guys that fit our scheme, it's utilizing the other draft picks on guys who fit our scheme. It's if we make a trade, finding guys that fit what we are trying to do offensively and defensively and going from there.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.

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