Eagles Appear Poised to Fall Victim to Free-Agent Overspending

The Philadelphia Eagles have glaring needs at cornerback, safety, linebacker, along the offensive line, potentially at wide receiver, now at running back and, depending on your viewpoint, at quarterback. Many of the holes were created through the recent releases or trade of capable veterans.

PLAYER	POSITION	STATUS
Nate Allen	S	Free Agent
Trent Cole	OLB	Released
Bradley Fletcher	CB	Free Agent
Todd Herremans	RG	Released
Jeremy Maclin	WR	Free Agent
LeSean McCoy	RB	Traded
Cary Williams	CB	Released

Meanwhile, according to Spotrac, Philadelphia is set to enter free agency a healthy $48 million under the NFL salary cap. As the old saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. All signs point to the Eagles going on a major shopping spree when the market opens on March 10.

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Sports fans love free agency; Don’t get me wrong, it is a necessary avenue teams must take to supplement the talent that’s on the roster, as is admittedly the case for the Eagles this offseason. However, you don’t necessarily want to build the bulk of your starting lineup out of a collection of castoffs, either.

Who is a free agent? An extremely small percentage are elite. Some quality talent reaches the market largely due to cap issues—yet even then, if an athlete was considered vital to their original club’s success, management would find a way to make it work. The rest are aging veterans in decline or players believed to have excelled as a result of the scheme.

Not to mention, in most cases teams are forced to outbid each other, which inevitably leads to paying average players like good players and good players like great ones. And even the free agents who are just coming off their rookie deals are already 27 or 28 years old, which means you might only get a few seasons of their best football.

That’s if they pan out at all. There’s a perception that free agency carries less risk than the draft, except there’s no guarantee a veteran is going to fit a new system, either, or one of a myriad of other factors won’t cause the signing to fail.

NAME	POSITION
Nnamdi Asomugha	CB
Jason Babin	DE
Ronnie Brown	RB
Ryan Harris	OT
Cullen Jenkins	DT
Donald Lee	TE
Evan Mathis	OG
Jarrad Page	S
Vince Young	QB

Surely, Philadelphia hasn’t forgotten the freewheeling summer of 2011, when the Eagles went out and signed all the free agents. That was fun for a while, too.

That roster became known as “The Dream Team,” a nickname that quickly became a term of derision as the Birds fell far short of expectations, winning eight games that season and four the next. The Dream Team ultimately got Andy Reid fired after 14 years as head coach, and the only piece that remains is All-Pro left guard Evan Mathis, originally an afterthought amid the many high-profile signings.

Maybe this time will be different, I’m told. Looking at some of the names that are being bandied about, and I’m not entirely convinced why.

The Eagles are considered the favorites to land Seattle Seahawks cornerback Byron Maxwell according to NFL draft insider Tony Pauline, and in all honesty, they probably need him. That being said, it could cost upwards of $10 million annually to get Maxwell under contract, and he isn’t exactly an established star. The fourth-year veteran has just 17 career starts in the NFL and ranked 25th out of 73 corners in opponents’ passer rating in 2014 based on game-charting by Pro Football Focus.

This is the second straight offseason Philly has been linked to Jason Worilds, with sports anchor Dianna Marie Russinni for NBC4 in Washington D.C. reporting the club will target the Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker. Worilds does everything well, from defending the run to rushing the passer to dropping into coverage to tackling—yet he doesn’t do anything at the highest of levels. Once again, the Eagles’ hand might be forced, but they’ll be paying a lot of money for good, not great.

Even with somebody like New England Patriots safety Devin McCourty, who Eagles beat reporter Ed Krack hears will be the club’s top target in free agency, there are question marks. McCourty seems like an almost perfect scheme and talent fit for the Birds. Yet as the top safety entering the market, he too could command in the neighborhood of $9 million per year, which is a ton for a player with three interceptions and three forced fumbles over the past two seasons.

Ross Franklin/Associated Press

There’s a feeling that part of the reason the Eagles would make a push in free agency because they are preparing to trade a package of draft picks to move up for Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Marcus Mariota. Such a deal would make filling these holes with young, inexpensive, developing talent a difficult task were it ever to come to fruition.

Even if that is the case, the timing seems off. Unless Mariota is an instant success, all these free agents are going to be approaching their 30s by the time he’s ready to position Philadelphia as a legitimate Super Bowl contender.

At this point, it appears to be far too late for the Eagles to turn around and head back. The players who have departed are already gone. Many of the vacancies will no doubt be filled through free agency.

Whether that is a mistake ultimately remains to be seen, but there is plenty of reason to be skeptical of the plan. Signing one or two free agents to fill holes is one thing. Building a roster full of overpriced, overvalued or overrated free agents is quite another.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Dream Team version 2.0 in Philadelphia if you ask me.