Happy NFL New Year everybody! Thatâs right. Last Thursday marked the beginning of the new NFL season. Now I don’t know if anybody grabbed a drink, put their arms around someone and cranked out a few lines to Auld Lang Syne or for that matter even knows what the Hell that song means. Uh, anyone? Auld Lang Syne? Little help.
“My whole life, I don’t know what this song means,” Harry, played by actor Billy Crystal, says in the 1989 movie When Harry Met Sally. “I mean, ‘should old acquaintance be forgot?’ Does that mean that we should forget old acquaintances or does it mean that if we happen to forget them, we should remember them, which is not possible because we already forgot ’em?”
“Well, maybe it just means that we should remember that we forgot them or something,” Meg Ryan’s character Sally responds. “Anyway, it’s about old friends.” Â
I think what Sally was trying to say was that it means waxing nostalgic about adventures good friends shared long ago. Â
Hmmm, okay so does 33 days count as long ago? Because thatâs how long it took from celebrating a Super Bowl Championship at a generational parade to the dismantling of the leagueâs number one defense. Or at least it feels that way. And if you ask the “former” Eagles about their feelings on accomplishing their life long dream just over a month ago, while wearing the unusual colors of their new team, in front of a room full of unfamiliar media faces at their introductory press conferences, you’ll probably get something similar to what Kenny Gainwell said to the Steelers beat writers and reporters the other day. “I can’t even say too much about it because it happened just like a couple weeks ago…um…I mean I can’t even get out the emotions even when I’m just talkin’ to my family…I mean it was a great game.”
Okay Kenny we’ll get back to you on that one when you get your emotions together and, uh, maybe figure out where the cafeteria is in your new work place in the ‘Burgh.
Gainwell was drafted by the Birds back in 2021 and played the last four years in Philly making $953,882 annually, with a $335,528 signing bonus and $335,528 guaranteed. He signed a one year deal with the Steelers worth $1.79 million for the 2025 season, including $620,000 guaranteed. So Gainwell essentially doubled his salary but only got a one year deal out of the Steelers. The Birds plan to replace him with second year back Will Shipley and former Packer running back A.J. Dillon, who missed all of last year with a neck injury. It seems like a lot of shell-shuffling to save what amounts to a few dinners for Jeffrey Lurie and some of his loyal lieutenants at La Famiglia on Front Street.
Howie Bled for This City
Just over a month ago Eaglesâ General Manager Howie Roseman was being seduced by unparalleled praise, love bombing and a heaping helping of heart felt gratitude by a city that can be, letâs say – cynical at times. Howie can do no wrong right now and his people were letting him know how much they appreciated his brilliant roster construction of a team that has gone to two of the last three Super Bowls and is the reigning champion after a leave-no-doubt drubbing of the two-time defending champion Kansas City Chiefs in last month’s Super Bowl.
But fast forward a month and you might stumble across a little gem like this on Twitter/X:
PhillySportsFan @PhillyS69689421
âHowie is destroying this team. Does he think the fans pay to see him? Heâs getting full of himself. He is dangerously close to losing this fan base for an entire generation.â
 Only in Philly and yes, someone actually wrote and tweeted that. But we shouldnât really be surprised. Around these parts youâre only as good as your last Saquon Barkley acquisition.  This whole off-season reset can go all the way up to next seasonâs trade deadline, and with Roseman pushing the buttons and pulling the levers it usually does. So why is there panic in the streets less than week into free agency?
Well for starters hereâs a list of the Birds from the championship season who have left for greener cash grabs.
Defense
EDGE Josh Sweat
DT Milton Williams
S Chauncey Gardner-Johnson
CB Darius Slay
CB Isaiah Rodgers
CB James Bradberry
LB Oren Burks
OffenseÂ
RB Kenneth Gainwell                                                                     G Mekhi Becton
As you can see the leagueâs number one defense and perhaps the best defense the Philadelphia Eagles franchise has ever seen is undergoing a massive make-over. This isnât anything new to the last team left standing in February. As an NFLer, you play for two things, money and a ring. The boys got their rings, now itâs time to get paid. Hey, itâs cool. Itâs part of the natural order, the evolution of life in the NFL.Â
So have your panic attack and emotional overreaction and get back to me when you’re done.
Reality Check
Finished? Good because I charge by the half minute for these grounding reality-check sessions and the clock is running. Now scan that list again. If you look at the list a little closer, you’ll see that none of those players are core elements of that critically acclaimed defense I spoke so highly of above, sans maybe C.J. Gardner-Johnson, who was moved in a bit of a head scratching trade that only saved the team $3.7 million in cap space this year. More on that a little later. The others were all second tier guys who played their way on to the field and to a man, all had some sort of positive impact on the Birds’ Super Bowl run. Let’s be honest, the Birds and most of those former Birds on that list, saved their best two performances of the season for last, so naturally its what everyone will remember most. Its recency bias at its finest.
Of course there’s a price to pay for balling out on the planet’s biggest stage. Edge rusher Josh Sweat signed with the Arizona Cardinals for four years, 76.4 million. Sweat led the team in sacks during the regular season with eight but finished the season with 10.5 if you include the playoffs, and really made his money with an off-the-hook performance in the Super Bowl, recording 2.5 sacks, six tackles, two solo and two tackles for loss. He was so dominant against the Chiefs that at least one Eagle thought that he should have been the Super Bowl MVP (just ask him). Â
Defensive lineman Milton Williams finished the regular season with just five quarterback take-downs but also had the game of his life against Patrick Mahomes as the fourth year Eagle tacked on two sacks including a strip that resulted in one of the Birds three takeaways that glorious day in the Bayou making the 40-22 blowout look like the Big Easy. While most of the guys on defense who have already turned in their jerseys may not comprise the infrastructure of Vic Fangio’s finest masterpiece in a career that has spanned a half of a century, they were all impact players and with the exception of James Bradbury, all delivered huge postseason contributions that made a difference.
The Eagles sent C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Texans in exchange for former first-round Guard Kenyon Green plus a pick swap. CJGJ and a 2026 6th-rounder to Houston for Green and a 2026 5th.
Gardner-Johnson is due $8.5 million and $11.5 million over the next two seasons. Green, whose time with the Texans was up and down, is in the last year of his rookie deal at $2.88 million. Clearly, Eagles OL coach Jeff Stoutland sees potential. Green was a first round pick of Houston’s four years ago but has been a bust so far in his NFL career. Pro Football Focus has Green rated as one of the worst guards in the league. He’s clearly a reclamation project in case Mekhi Becton signs else where which he did Friday night, signing a two year deal with the L.A. Chargers worth $20 million.
I keep hearing the move had nothing to do with Gardner-Johnson’s lack of self control on social media as well as on the field. I was told that this was strictly a money saving deal down the road. Okay Iâll buy that but I donât like it a little bit. They could have crossed that bridge when it came. C.J.G.J. has had two stints here at the safety position and performed very well both times. Both times the Eagles went to the Super Bowl. He picked off six balls back in 2022 which was good enough for tops in the league despite missing five games with a lacerated kidney. This past season he picked off six balls again, good enough for third most in the league. He brings an epic swagger to the defense and gives them a nasty edge. He’s also a ball hawk and was one of the main reasons the Birds’ defense went from 30th in the league two seasons ago to number one this past year. So if youâre keeping score at home the Birds lost their top pass rusher and top ball hawk in the same off-season. Bad move on the latter Howie.
Howie Learned His Lesson
Apparently Roseman learned his lesson last time the Eagles won a Super Bowl. He tried to keep that team intact, he let emotion rule his decisions and he gave contracts to older players near the end of their career.
And then he watched as an aging team slowly declined. My problem with what Iâm seeing is an over compensation for his sins of the past. Roseman is a hyper-aggressive G.M. who takes big swings and thatâs why his team has been to three Super Bowls in the last eight seasons, winning two of them. He’s usually ahead of the curve and moves off his mistakes rather quickly.
The 2017 Eagles were the 8th-oldest team in football and by 2018 they were 3rd-oldest, and the decline was on. The 2018 team did steal a wild-card win in Chicago and came within an Alshon Jeffrey drop of beating the Saints and advancing to the NFC title game but the 2018 and 2019 teams both went 9-7 and the bottom fell out in 2020 with a 4-11-1 disaster that cost head coach Doug Pederson his job.
The three years immediately after the Super Bowl LII win, with an aging roster and a G.M. who admittedly made decisions for the wrong reasons, the Eagles went 22-25-1, the 20th-best record in the NFL over that three-year span.
It wasnât until Roseman began replenishing the roster with young players and Nick Sirianni was hired that they became competitive again.
And Roseman told himself: If the Eagles ever win another Super Bowl, I’m not going to let emotions get in the way of smart roster moves.
Itâs got to be so hard building a championship roster with homegrown players and then essentially dismantling it. But Roseman learned. You canât run it back. It just doesnât work.
I totally get that but one of the team’s most glaring weaknesses, especially last year was their spotty secondary. It has taken them years to find two lock down corners with a whole truck load of depth and leadership and in one three day period it went poof. Slay, Bradbury, Rodgers and Gardner-Johnson all gone but not forgotten.
And Howie is convinced that you canât sustain success without constantly infusing the roster with young players and that’s exactly what he’s done with the no-name additions who are all under 27 years of age. Rosemanâs plan for this offseason was a simple one. Stock up on draft picks. Donât even try to sign any free agents. Get younger. Trust the kids and trust the process. Put the compensatory pick formula to work. The plan was obviously to trim the fiscal fat and keep stockpiling daft picks which teams are awarded for losing certain players to free agency. They’re called compensatory picks and right now the Birds have 20 total draft picks over the next two drafts. Eight picks in next month’s draft and 12 in 2026. That means you have to keep drafting well and that means you have to have a lot of starters on rookie contracts and that means you can pay market value to keep your superstars.
2025 Picks:
1st round (PHI), No. 32
2nd round (PHI), No. 64
3rd round (PHI), No. 96
4th round (DET), No. 130
5th round (HOU), No. 161
5th round (CLE via DET), No. 164
5th round (WAS), No. 165
5th round (PHI), No. 168
2026 Picks:
1st round (PHI)
2nd round (PHI)
3rd round (PHI)
3rd round (NYJ)
4th round (PHI)
5th round (PHI)
5th round (HOU)
7th round (PHI)
four compensatory picks too (3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th rounds)
Howie is the Process
Here’s the plan at at glance:
- Keep the core
- Add value free agents
- Develop the younger player
- Dominate the draft
Thatâs the formula. Thatâs the plan. But it only works if you draft well, which is a big “if”. You build your team through the draft and cover your mistakes in free agency. Â
Here’s where I get tweaked when I hear the so-called “experts” and “pundits” say this is Howie’s formula. Nobody in Philly should worry because he knows what he’s doing and he knows how to do it. Just look what he did to construct last season’s team.
Now these should know better than it is extremely rare to draft not one, but both your starting cornerbacks that wind up leading the top defense in the league to a Super Bowl championship. I think it’s actually rarer than it is for you or I to be eaten by an alligator.Â
Fine if you must know 1 in about 3.1 million of us will meet our demise at the jaws of an adult alligator (6 ft+) and that alligator, when born had a 1% chance of making it to adulthood. So you do the math Archimedes.
What’s also extremely rare is that 17 of the 18 players Roseman has drafted in the first four rounds since 2021 have developed into important pieces, with 2021 4th-rounder Zech McPhearson the only exception â although he did play a lot as a rookie.
That’s virtually impossible to do but hey the proof is in the trophy case and you can’t argue with the weight of Roseman’s jewelry box which just got a little heavier a couple of weeks ago.
Its truly amazing because only 30% of players drafted will ever make it onto an NFL roster. I honestly know no way of “fixing” the NFL draft but the league might want to start investigating Roseman if this keeps up.
The goal, Roseman said at the NFL Scouting Combine, is to “keep the window open as long as possible,” and the way the Eagles have their core set up, everything is possible.
The Island of Misfit Toys
The Eagles were also hit with $50 million in dead cap money this year so they only had $230 million to work with versus $280 million, which is the top of the NFL’s cap this year. So all of that said, here’s what Howie has done to giveth Eagle Nation this free agency period so far and the little caveats that come with the chosen ones from the island of misfit toys.
Tight end Harrison Bryant had a career-low nine catches last year. Edge rusher Joshua Uche has just five sacks in nearly 600 snaps the last two seasons. Cornerback Adoreeâ Jackson has two interceptions in 4,547 snaps in his last 83 games. Running back A.J. Dillon missed last year with a neck injury. Running back Avery Williams missed the 2023 season with a torn ACL. Guard Kenyon Green was the lowest-rated guard in the NFL in both of his two years as a starter, according to Pro Football Focus. Patrick Johnson is an edge rusher with no career sacks in 517 career defensive snaps. Tight end Kylen Gransonâs catches dropped from 61 in 2002 and 2023 to 14 last year. Quarter back Dorian Thompson-Robinson has the worst TD-INT ratio in the NFL in the last 40 years.
When youâre in the position the Eagles are in, this is what you get in free agency. I say this all the time, ‘the bill always comes due’. Every single addition has a big, giant question mark attached. This is what “value” means from #2 above of the plan. Most of the above were highly rated players at some point. Now they are considered reclamation projects and or insurance pieces and they’ve come to the right place.  Like him or not Howie is considered to be the best NFL General Manager in the league right now and over the last eight years he’s really given no reason not to trust him.
It hasn’t been an easy off-season to watch and I get that. But this is the embryonic stage of how the Birds make the sausage.  It’s Howie’s version of The Process and if you trust Howie, you trust his process. Just remember each year’s process goes all the way up to next season’s trade deadline so you can’t assess Howie’s genius this year or lack thereof for about another seven months. My recommendation is to avoid the headlines, watch last February’s Super Bowl highlights when you need a fix, and show up in September with your fork and your insatiable appetite for another deep run of playoff football.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Can Howie’s Birds Survive Mass Exodus Makeover? appeared first on Heavy Sports.