The Eagles were one of the most active teams in the NFL’s
offseason. The team shelled out just over $280 million in guaranteed money.
Resurrected Vice President of Football Operations Howie Roseman spent most of
the first half of the offseason locking up the players already on the roster that
he wanted to retain long term. Zach Ertz, Lane Johnson, Malcolm Jenkins and
Vinny Curry all signed lucrative contracts that will keep them in Philadelphia
until at least 2021. Other players like Brent Celek and Sam Bradford received
shorter term deals to stay in midnight green. Then the Eagles went out into
free agency and dished out more money. Their biggest acquisitions were safety
Rodney McLeod and guard Brandon Brooks. Roseman made two big trades to move up in
the draft all the way to number two overall to select who he hopes to be next
franchise quarterback in Carson Wentz.
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| Mitchell Leff/Getty Images |
After an extremely busy four months, the biggest question
hovering over the Eagles wasn’t if the new-look roster would have instant success
in the first year of a new coaching regime, but rather one surrounding a player
who had not yet received a new contract. It happened to be the team’s best
player. Defensive tackle Fletcher Cox had yet to sign his second contract and
was absent at the team’s voluntary minicamp. While Cox still had one year left on his rookie
deal, and the team had the option of placing the franchise tag on him following
the season, given all the other players the team locked up, it made sense to
take care of Cox.
Cox fired off of a couple of cryptic tweets in the offseason
after some of his teammates signed new deals. Media members that tried to
contact him weren’t given much intel on the situation between Cox, agent Todd
France, and the Eagles. It doesn’t take brain surgery to put two and two together
and realize that Cox wanted his money. He deserved it. He got it when he signed
a six-year $103 million deal with $63 million guaranteed as ESPN’s Adam
Schefter reported on Monday.
It was the largest amount of guaranteed money for a
non-quarterback in NFL history. But as crazy as this sounds, that’s not what’s
really important here. The NFL’s salary cap for 2016 increased by $12 million.
The contracts are only getting bigger. Pretty soon, there will probably be a
new player that signs a contract with the highest amount of guaranteed money
for a non-quarterback. The New York Jets are in the middle of a contract
dispute with defensive tackle Muhammad Wilkerson and decided to franchise him.
Another one of the game’s upper echelon defensive players, Denver outside
linebacker Von Miller, has also been franchised. Cox signing this big contract
gives players like Wilkerson and Miller leverage that could make negotiations
harder for the Jets and Broncos. Fortunately for the Eagles, Cox doesn’t have
similar leverage since his contract set the bar.
Many of the contracts the Eagles handed out this offseason
were given to players they were betting on to take the next step in their
careers. Players like Ertz and Lane Johnson are finishing up their rookie deals
in 2016. Vinny Curry has never been an
elite pass rusher but the team hopes Jim Schwartz’s new defense allows Curry to
reach a new level. But Cox has proven to be a game-changing talent in the
trenches. It doesn’t send the best message to other players on the roster if
the Eagles are willing to give out contracts to players they’re banking on to
take the next step but not give contracts to players that have already arrived.
The ripple effect in the short term that this deal will have on the NFL and the
long term organizational effect not getting a deal done could have had are
exactly why the Eagles had to get this done. There was no other option.
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