USA Today
A Path To Eagles Potentially Drafting Bijan Robinson
Howie Roseman’s approach in the draft is rarely just about the here and now. The Eagles’ GM takes the big picture view and what the roster will look like not just months after a draft ends, but three years out.
So, in this case, through 2025.
It’s something to keep in mind when the Eagles hit the clock in the first round of the draft on April 27 and over the ensuing three days.
Here’s a look at the Eagles’ 2025 landscape and how it very well could lead the GM to take Bijan Robinson in the first round. Robinson was in Philly earlier this week on an official visit.
In three years, Jalen Hurts will be 27 and in the second year of his contract extension. That extension isn’t done yet, but it will be before the start of the final season on his rookie deal. With him entrenched as the face of the franchise, the Eagles should always be a threat to make a playoff push and run at the Super Bowl.
Who knows, maybe by 2025 he will have already won a Super Bowl, after coming oh so close this season.
At the 86th annual Maxwell Football Club 2023 National Awards Gala earlier in March, he closed his remarks by talking about the Eagles’ multi-record-setting season that landed them in Super Bowl LVII: “This is only the beginning. …"I didn't walk through all that fire just to smell the smoke" of a Super Bowl appearance.”
A.J. Brown’s contract will be posed to take a monumental leap, the kind of increase that leads to a restructure or release. He will still be just 28 then and very well could be writing a Hall of Fame resume.
Still, a $26.5 million salary cap charge is a lot no matter how the cap grows over the next three seasons. It’s a number that skyrockets to $41.5M in the final year of his deal.
Complicating matters is Dallas Goedert’s contract is for $14M in base salary in both 2024 and 2025 with cap charges of $19.3M in each of those years.
Hard decisions will need to be made, regardless of how much the cap increases over the next few years.
There’s more.
DeVonta Smith’s rookie contract expires after the 2024 season, so he will need a new deal, which could come after the 2023 season, and, like Smith, RB Kenny Gainwell’s contract runs out at the end of 2024.
If this portrait of 2025 is painted correctly, Hurts is the only sure thing in 2025.
The guess is the Eagles will find a way to make Brown and Smith work. Probably Goedert, too.
This is where Robinson could come into play.
Drafting him in the first round gives you four years of control of a player considered the best in a very good crop of running backs entering this spring’s draft.
Last year’s tenth pick, Jets WR Garrett Wilson, signed a four-year rookie contract worth $20,554,006 fully guaranteed including a $12,128,368 signing bonus.
Drafting the best player at his position keeps Robinson and Hurts in the same backfield through 2026 and gives Roseman some leeway to battle through what figure to be tricky negotiations. with Brown and Smith as well as Goedert.
Granted, a running back may not be a good value in the first round, especially given the Eagles’ philosophy of building on both sides of the line of scrimmage, and, while it’s true the Cowboys and Giants haven’t been to a Super Bowl with Ezekiel Elliott or Saquon Barkley, the Bucs did win one in 2020 with Leonard Fournette, a first-round pick in 2017, as a contributor.
Besides, what may not work for one organization when it took a running back doesn't mean it wouldn't work out for the Eagles.
Some may say trade down and take Robinson later, and sure, that makes sense, but Robinson could be gone at No. 14 to the New England Patriots, which is what NFL analyst Daniel Jeremiah has happening in his recent mock draft, 3.0.
Taking Robison at 10 or in the teens or 20s doesn't make a huge difference in money, so why risk the gamble if you really want him?
Roseman was 11 the last time the Eagles took a running back. That was in 1986.
Maybe circumstances will lead him to do something he’s never done in his 20-plus years in Philadelphia and take a RB like Robinson on opening night.
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.
