Howie Roseman did a whole lot of spending this offseason. If fact, according to ESPN, since January 1, the Eagles have handed out more guaranteed money than any team in the NFL by a wide margin.
That above figure includes the $63 million in "guaranteed" money the Eagles gave Fletcher Cox earlier this week. Cox is one of just a number of current Eagles players who were extended by the team this offseason. To recap, the Eagles also re-signed, in chronological order, Zach Ertz, Brent Celek, Lane Johnson, Vinny Curry, Malcolm Jenkins, and Sam Bradford to multiple-year deals.
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In free agency, the Eagles signed the following outside players to multiple-year deals: CB Leodis McKelvin, OG Brandon Brooks, S Rodney McLeod, CB Ron Brooks, LB Nigel Bradham, and QB Chase Daniel.
And then of course Roseman spent a whole lot of draft capital to move up to the No. 2 overall pick to select quarterback Carson Wentz.
A few select vets and players still on their rookie contracts aside, the above players are the core of the team. Well, excluding Bradford, obviously. Why did the Eagles spend so much this offseason? For continuity, explained Roseman.
"In terms of how we were thinking about it, when we sat down and looked at our roster, we felt like there were a bunch of players we wanted to keep here," he said. "And for us to have a run of sustained success like we were fortunate to have from 1999 to 2008 where we went to five championship games that we needed some continuity.
"There's been a lot of change; I take responsibility for a lot of change that has been made, but going forward, we're hoping to not have that change."
Every offseason for every team is dubbed "important." However, there's no denying that the stakes are far higher this offseason than normal for the Eagles. First and foremost, they need Wentz to pan out or the franchise will be looking at repeating this building process once again. But beyond Wentz, when you spend nearly double the amount of guaranteed money as the next closest team in the NFL, you better be getting it right with the pieces with whom you're surrounding your young quarterback.
Continuity is great, but only when you have talented players. Continuity with mediocre players will make you consistently bad. The 1999-2008 Eagles were very talented, so it made sense to keep continuity. While the Eagles are wise to strive for continuity, it will only work if the players they've committed to are, you know, good, which Roseman understands.
"The honest answer is we were 7-9 and we're not sitting here and talking about being the '85 Bears that were this dominant team," he acknowledged. "But when you look at the teams that are really good teams and have a chance to be great teams, it's because they have a core group of players that they keep together. And when you're changing guys in and out and you're losing good players that you invested draft picks, it's hard to build anything. It's hard to sustain anything, and so we know we have a lot of other areas that we have to improve.
"Again, it would have been much easier from all of our perspectives to invest in guys that could just make this year's team better. But we felt like we had to put ourselves in a position to have at some point a run of success where it's not just piecemeal year-to-year."
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