NFL free agency is just five days away, so let's do a mailbag post or three to handle all your questions. As always, thank you for doing half the work for me.

Question from @Lepe02: Do you think the Eagles are realistically in on Maxx Crosby or is that just the national media doing the whole, "The Eagles are in on everything" thing?

I actually don't think it's that crazy. Crosby's contract is extremely tradable, and easy for an acquiring team to re-work so that he won't cost too much on the cap in 2026. He is under contract through 2029, with an average annual salary of $28.2 million for the remaining four years of his deal, none of which is guaranteed beyond the 2026 season.

The Eagles tried to trade for Myles Garrett and Micah Parsons a year ago. Crosby is probably in the next tier below those guys, but if you're the Eagles it's pretty exciting imagining what Crosby could do playing on a line where Jalen Carter is constantly getting double-teamed.

Of course, if the Eagles are able to re-sign Jaelan Phillips, then any Crosby talk is off the table. But if they can't, Crosby at $28 million per year is better value than Phillips at, I dunno, $20-$22 million per year. Obviously, the difference is what you'd have to give up in draft compensation. The Raiders are doing some ridiculous posturing on the cost (two first-round picks and a good player) to acquire him, as they should, but I imagine that he'll ultimately get dealt for a 1 and change. 

I think the reporting on the Eagles' interest in Crosby was that they are "keeping tabs" on him, which, of course they are.

Question from @7he_reason (via Threads): Will the Eagles have interest in Trey Hendrickson? David Njoku?

Hendrickson is going to cost a lot, and personally, I don't think he's a good scheme fit. That guy is a classic 43 DE. If Jim Schwartz were the defensive coordinator, yep. Vic Fangio... nope.

ESP reported that the Eagles have interest in Njoku. He does kind of fit the profile of the type of potentially undervalued player the Eagles take shots on. In 2023, he had a stat line of 81-882-6, and made the Pro Bowl on a Browns team with bad quarterbacks. He battled a knee injury all season in 2025, and his numbers (33-293-4) were way down. 

Njoku has been around a while. This will be his 10th season, and he'll turn 30 in July. But, because of his age and his down production, he's not going to cost much. I think he does make some sense as a player who can get back to close to what he was if he's healthy, and it won't hurt being on a better team.

Question from @vpofwinning (via Bluesky): What is the line of no return for Jaelan Phillips? Is it an average of more than $20m per year? I've seen estimates for him ranging from $15m per year up to $25m. At what point would the Eagles walk away?

If Phillips signs something like a three-year deal worth $60 million, with the way the Eagles structure contracts he'll only count on their cap for somewhere around $5 million in 2026. That's where I'd project him. If he costs less, great. The Eagles can certainly do it if they want to make him a priority, and they can even inch above $20 million a bit if they really want to. It's just a matter of whether some other team out there desperate for help on the edge makes him an insane offer not worth matching. 

If I'm the Eagles, I'm trying to figure out what I think the line between a third- and fourth-round compensatory pick would be for losing Phillips. That's not a perfect science, because 2026 snap count percentage factors in there. That number is probably around $24-$25 million per year. If he were to get an offer higher than that, it's a very easy decision to walk away, obviously. But if it inches up to, saaaayyy, $22 million or so, I'd probably just pay him.

Question from @richkotitesghost (via Bluesky): What is plan B at edge if Phillips is too expensive? Bradley Chubb plus a comp pick?

If they don't re-sign him, they're going to be forced to give up some kind of premium asset -- whether financial or draft capital -- to replace him. So they'll to have to spend on an edge defender either way. You may as well keep the guy you know you already like, and who fits what you want to accomplish defensively.

But if indeed Phillips is too expensive, I think the Eagles would first try to make a splash acquisition (Crosby, for example), and then work down from there.

Question from @daruz51: If Jaelan Phillips is such an important signing and if he is going to have such a strong market, why is the franchise tag not in play for him?

Phillips is a good player, he fits the Eagles' scheme, he wants to be in Philly, he gives them a power rusher element that they don't really have with Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt, and the team already gave up a third-round pick to go get him. Also, if they are able to re-sign him, they're pretty much set on edge for 2026. They'd have a nice foursome in Phillips, Smith, Hunt, and Brandon Graham, assuming he comes back. They would then also be able to take a shot on a Day 2 or Day 3 guy in the draft who they can develop.

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But the franchise tag was never on the table for Phillips. Franchise tag figures are based on the top five salaries at each respective position. The tag number for Phillips would be just under $27 million. While a good player, Phillips is not that kind of player. But also, if you tag him, he's on your cap at that number for as long as it takes to get a long-term deal done with him. At $27 million, he'd have the second-highest cap number on the team, and the Eagles simply can't have that kind of money tying up their cap this offseason.

Question from @bula412: Not really about the Eagles but does any team in the NFL use the franchise tag more than Dallas?

The Eagles last used their franchise tag in 2012, on DeSean Jackson. Since 2012, the Cowboys have used their franchise tag 10 (!) times:

• 2012: DE Anthony Spencer
• 2013: DE Anthony Spencer
• 2015: WR Dez Bryant
• 2018: DE DeMarcus Lawrence
• 2019: DE DeMarcus Lawrence
• 2020: QB Dak Prescott
• 2021: QB Dak Prescott
• 2022: TE Dalton Schultz
• 2023: RB Tony Pollard
• 2026: WR George Pickens

Players hate it, and oftentimes all the tag does is make the team ultimately wind up paying the player more than they otherwise would have if they instead sought a fair long-term deal before ever having to use it. Personally, I think the tag is bad business for a lot of reasons, but whatever. 🤷‍♂️

Question from @mellow_eagles_fan (via Threads): Any chance that the Eagles keep Jahan Dotson? He was a very good receiver whenever Hurts and the coaching staff remembered that he was there. We will be hard pressed to find a better WR3.

I'll respectfully disagree that he was "a very good receiver." Dotson has good hands and he makes the plays he should make when the ball comes his way. However, that dude can't beat press coverage, which is a big reason the ball rarely came his way. I think he's entirely replaceable, and I also think that he won't want to come back, given that he basically just got cardio work in every week on gameday.

Question from @bdbd20: Is DT an underrated long-term need? Jalen Carter will get paid. If Jordan Davis has another outstanding season, can the Eagles afford him?

I believe that Carter and Davis will both get new deals this offseason. In the case of Davis, a new deal will actually lower his cap number in 2026. However, I do think this will probably be Moro Ojomo's last season in Philly. He is scheduled to become a free agent next offseason, and I imagine that his representation will be smart enough to diagnose that he will get paid on the open market, assuming he continues to play like he did in 2025 (or even better, continues to improve).

So, the team does have to think ahead about replacing Ojomo's production and snaps, but that's a year away. I don't know what they truly think of Ty Robinson, but he would make sense as a player growing into that role. He has to show more in 2026 than he did as a rookie in 2025, though.

Question from @stevecleff (via Bluesky): I hear people say dead cap money is never a problem for the Eagles, but this year they’ll have $36M in dead cap for Huff, Slay, and Bradberry, and likely can’t afford to sign three of their top free agents. Or are those unrelated because they’re not re-signing them because they don't want to overpay?

It's not that dead cap is "never a problem." That's too simplistic. It's more that they are always going to among the NFL leaders in dead money because it is baked into their financial strategy. We covered this in some depth when we laid out the financial ramifications of trading A.J. Brown. It's too much to copy and paste into this mailbag, but it's worth reading, in my opinion, if you want to understand why the Eagles will always have more dead cap than their competitors.

The answer to why the Eagles lost a handful of good players last year and likely will as well this year is pretty simple -- They have WAY more good players than most of the other teams around the NFL, and in a salary-capped league, it's impossible to keep all of them. (It's also worth noting that they only had all those good players in the first place because of the way they manipulate the cap.)

The salary cap is a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it sucks building a roster and then having to part with good players because you've accumulated too many of them. On the other hand, in baseball you have teams like the Dodgers paying almost $400 million to their players and the Marlins paying theirs around $80 million. And, frankly, that makes for a bad product in a lot of ways.

Question from @jayelharris215: Is Mashawn Lattimore a viable option for CB2 or just a big name?

He’s cooked.

Question from @killakow: Who’s the first player to sign anywhere this year?

I feel like it's never some big-name player, which makes sense, because the guys at the top of the market are probably making one last call for "best and final" once the window opens up. I feel like it's typically a recognizable player that doesn't have a lot of teams after him, but who will find that one team willing to shell out a lot of money just to get it done quickly. I'm gonna go offensive line here. Alijah Vera-Tucker, OG, Jets.

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