Philly Front Office

After the CJGJ trade, there is a growing sentiment that the Eagles are gearing up to shed more cap this off season. Usually this is a process for getting compliant with the salary cap or to sign other free agents, but not this time. The idea is that the Eagles are clearing future money in order to be ready for contract extensions next year and beyond, including Cam Jurgens, Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith, and even Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean. Who could be on the chopping block and why?

Dallas Goedert

Goedert is in the final year of his contract and is not happy about it. He wants to either be traded or extended. Rightfully so too. Players want to lock in their money while they still can and going to a place that wants to pay you is important. That place will not be Philadelphia. So, even though he has a year left, many are speculating that the Eagles will try to get what they can for him, with the price presumably a 4th rounder.

Right now, his contract counts as $12m against the cap, but here is where things get tricky. He is owed a $14m option bonus at the beginning of the season. Now that is already accounted for in that $12m, but the rest of the money will go forward on the cap sheet and be due next season. Let’s play choose your own adventure with Goedert’s future. What if we…

• …keep him? $12m cap hit this season $23m cap hit next season with no contract
• …trade him or cut him before June 1? $21m cap hit this season (so decrease of $9m in space), but no cap hit next season
• …trade him or cut him after June 1? $8m cap hit this year, $13m cap hit next year.
• …adjust his contract and keep him? Depending on the amount this could lower the cap hit this year and next year, but would likely come due at the worst possible time, when they need cap space for the extensions.

This whole off season I figured the last option was most likely, but with the recent purge, it will probably be option 2 or 3. If the plan is to open up cap space in the future, then either are possible. Excess cap money carries over to the following year, so the only difference is having more money to spend now if you need it. If they get a good enough deal, they will pull the trigger.

Bryce Huff

Woof, what a bad deal. It is amazing that our biggest free agent signing before winning a Super Bowl could be such a bust. He never looked like he even belonged on the field. Unfortunately, he has 2 years and about $34m left on his deal with $17m of that guaranteed. How are we going to deal with that? By calling up some bad teams, that’s how.

As it stands, his cap hit this season is $7.5m. Not a killer. However, this goes up to $12m and then $27.5m the next two years. No thank you! If we just cut him, $30m accelerates to the top of the cap sheet. Not only is that awful, but we would be in violation of cap rules. So count that one out. It worked so well a few paragraphs ago, let’s choose our own Bryce Huff adventure this time. What if we:

• …trade him now? Now only $13m comes due this season because his $16m option bonus due at the beginning of the season becomes someone else’s problem. This would clear him from the books in the future, but take away $6.5m of this year’s spending power.
• …trade him before the season starts but after June 1? Now we are talking. His $7.5m cap hit drops to just over $3m this season and drops to only $9.5m next year. (ding ding!)
• …cut him after June 1? Don’t even think about it. Thats $20m now and $10m later.

Why would any team trade for him??? Great question. First, Any team that trade for him doesn’t have nearly the financial headache that we would have because the Eagles were responsible for his signing bonus and the new team would not be. His cap hit would only be $2.5m this season (but $14.5m when he gets cut next year unless he sticks). Second, we bribe them. Not with cash, but with draft picks. What would it take for someone to take on those cap hits?

Back in 2017 the Cleveland Browns traded for Brock Osweiler from the Houston Texans. Osweiler was not any good and would cost Cleveland $16m that season. For their trouble, they basically received a 2nd round pick the next season (that ended up being way higher than they could have expected #35). That’s the only full-on negative salary dump I can remember. Of course, that was 8 years ago and the cap has almost doubled since then. Would someone accept a 3rd or 4th rounder to take Huff? Are we that desperate to move him?

It is important to know that with both Goedert and Huff, their options are not due until the season starts. This matters because option money cannot be traded. Whoever picks up the option is on the hook for it. The Eagles just need to get ahead of the option, that is the timeline.

Anyone Else?

Brandon Graham is the only other roster spot in jeopardy from what I understand. With Slay and Bradberry already ticketed for departure, only BG would make any real difference. I have assumed he is not coming back in all of my cap estimates. If this is true, he counts as $9m against the cap this season and nothing next year. However, if he returns on a similar 1 year, $4m contract, his cap hit will actually go down this season to about $4.5m. However, this would make next year around $8.5m. So that extra cash is due sometime.

Cap Update

We started the offseason at around $18m assuming BG retires. Since then we have:

• Traded away Kenny Pickett (+2.5m)
• Resigned Zack Baun (-$4m estimate)
• Traded CJGJ (negligble change)
• Traded for Kenyon Green (+$1m because Houston is aying down some of the contract)
• Extended Saquon Barkley (-1m )

That puts us at around $16.5m to spend. Granted we will need money to sign draft picks, but we will see where we end up picking in the end before making any assumptions there.

(Thanks to Overthecap.com for being awesome)