Over the weekend, the Eagles added to their pass rushing stable by sending the #98 pick in this year’s draft and a 3rd rounder in next year’s draft to the Vikings for Jonathan Greenard and pick #244. The Eagles promptly signed him to a 4/$98m extension. Here is what that all means and how tidy it will look on the cap sheet.
The Player
I have a friend who is a Minnesota Vikings fan. It’s weird. He is perpetually sad around football season in a resigned, nothing will ever go right kind of way.1 As soon as the trade was made, I texted him up and he tells me “Dude has a motor!” That’s what we are getting out of Greenard, a man who relentlessly pursues QBs.
How relentless? Even in a season where he was hurt and missed games, he was still 17th in the NFL in hurries and 30th in pressures. His 3 sacks were way down from the 12.5 he had in each of the previous two seasons, but his overlying metrics were as good as ever. He is only 28 and coming off a 2024 that saw him finish 11th in the league for DPOY. His time to win is right now.
The Fit
The Eagles were short a pass rusher last year after Josh Sweat left for Arizona. At the trade deadline, this meant shelling out a 3rd round pick for Jaelan Phillips. When Phillips left this spring, we were back in the same hole. Rumors swirled about Maxx Crosby, a possible reunion with Sweat, or taking a pass rusher in the 1st round. Nothing doing.
Howie Roseman then takes the 3rd round comp pick he got for Milton Williams and a 3rd rounder next season (roughly around where the future comp pick for Phillips will be) and nabs Greenard from a Vikings team that gambled big and failed with JJ McCarthy. Minnesota has no need for a pass rusher in his prime and looking for a new contract. The Eagles are in a very different position.
Now Greenard will start opposite Nolan Smith with Jalyx Hunt and Arnold Ebiketie backing them up. Brandon Graham is still hanging around too. Essentially, he gives us the #1 pass rush option that that the team was missing. Everyone else falls into their right place, one man down the pecking order.
The Contract
A $98m contract sounds impressive. It’s easy to assume that the Eagles will be cashed strapped because of this, but as always with NFL deals, things are not what they seem. Greenard was already set to make $18m both this year and next from his current deal. However, that money was non-guaranteed. In the NFL, the guarantee is everything.
As a prerequisite for the trade, Greenard wanted a new deal, one that gives him a raise and security. The Eagles renegotiated his current pact and gave him a $23m signing bonus. 2027 comes with a $23m option bonus. Both those amounts are fully guaranteed, as are his actual salaries of $1.2m and $1.3m. Essentially, Greenard received a $14m guaranteed raise over the next 2 seasons. 2028 and 2029 come with $22m option bonuses that are not guaranteed and simply must be exercised before week 1 of each season.
That last part is a big deal for future roster manipulation. By saving the guarantees for later in the offseason, the Eagles will not be forced to make any early decisions and will not be hamstrung in trade leverage. This tells me that this was a very mutual decision to get Greenard to Philadelphia no matter what as long as he was fairly compensated for the next two seasons.
Speaking of fair compensation, Greenard is now the 15th highest paid EDGE defender. He will be making less than half that of newly extended Will Anderson though. Anderson is obviously better, but is he 2x better? No way. Needless to say the Eagles made out well with this deal.
Thinking of the future, if the Eagles do not want to retain Greenard after his first two guaranteed seasons, he would come with a $33m dead cap hit if cut right away. However, the Eagles standard practice of releasing players after June 1 will split the burden between two seasons meaning $10m in 2028 and $23m in 2029. Or, they could extend him again to bring it down. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves too much though.
The Cap
Greenard’s cap hits over the next two seasons will only be $6.3m and then $11.1m. By my calculations, the Eagles were at around $32m before the draft. Greenard brings that number down to around $26m. Once the draft picks start signing, this should come down to around $21m.
Of course, we can’t have this conversation without mentioning the AJ Brown elephant in the room! Assuming AJ is traded after June 1, the Eagles will save $7m and be up to around $28m to spend.
Contract Info: Spotrac
Photo: Minnesota Vikings
- He’s also a Michigan Wolverines fan, so he’s doing just fine. ↩︎
Philly Front Office 
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