Howie Roseman didn’t exactly tell Eagles fans to relax, but he came close enough.
Speaking Wednesday before the team’s first training camp practice of the summer, the Eagles general manager said the organization intends to keep a core of young players around for the long haul - the kind of message that should make anyone wearing a jersey with one of those names on the back feel a little better.
“I would say to our fans, if you're wearing a jersey with some of those guys with those names on the back, we fully intend for those guys to be here on the long term,” said Roseman on Wednesday, prior to the start of the Eagles’ first training camp practice of summer.
That kind of promise points straight toward the next wave of contract business, with heavyweight secondary pieces Quinyon Mitchell and Cooper DeJean looking like the obvious beneficiaries.
Roseman framed the whole thing as the Eagles’ preferred way of doing business: draft, develop, re-sign. Since Nick Sirianni arrived, that’s been the blueprint.
“When you talk about it, general managers get hired and they'll stand up and they'll have these microphones and they'll say, 'Well, how do you want to build your team?' And they say, 'We want to draft, we want to develop, we want to re-sign,'” said Roseman.
“Since coach (Nick) Sirianni's here, that's all we've done. We've drafted players, we've resigned our players.”
Of course, the Eagles don’t get to ignore the salary cap, and Jeffrey Lurie’s checkbook isn’t endless. That means tough calls still show up, and Roseman has already lived through them. Nakobe Dean and Reed Blankenship were among the names that got squeezed last year, and Milton Williams, Josh Sweat, and Mekhi Becton were moved on from after the 2024 Super Bowl season.
There could be more of that ahead. Nolan Smith, Moro Ojomo, and Jalyx Hunt were all mentioned as players who could end up on the outside looking in, though Roseman’s clear preference is to keep as many of these pieces in-house as possible.
“When you talk about culture, that's the first thing that comes to mind: 'If I do well, I'm going to get rewarded. I don't have to go somewhere else to do that,'” the GM said.
“That's really a huge part of what we're trying to build. So, we're proud of that.
That's going to be our first priority as opposed to getting to (free agency in) March and trying to go outside the building.
“The way that these drafts go about, it also allows you to structure your contracts in a way that you can continue to keep guys. Now, you're going to have to make sacrifices.
You saw it in the offseason. We let players go that we care about, that we think are good players, that we think are really good people, that fit, but we had to move on because we have some game changing players and people that are part of this organization and we don't intend to lose.”
Roseman’s edge in all of this is no mystery to anyone who has watched him work. He came into the organization in 2000 on the salary cap side, and that background still shapes how he operates. He knows contracts, he knows the numbers, and he knows how to keep finding room when it looks like there isn’t any.
The Eagles have already shown that with the money they found for Jalen Carter, who signed a record-breaking $106 million deal the night before camp opened. That came nearly five months after Jordan Davis got $65M guaranteed on his extension.
That’s a lot of money tied up in defensive tackles, but it fits the way the Eagles think. They’ve long poured resources into the offensive line, and now the defensive line is getting the same kind of treatment. They drafted two standout tackles they clearly don’t want to lose, and they found a way to pay them.
The expectation is that Roseman will keep doing it. Mitchell and DeJean look like the next priority, with Hunt and Ojomo - and not necessarily in that order - potentially next if the money can be made to work.
Linebacker Zack Baun said the approach is exactly what stands out about the Eagles.
“I feel like the Eagles have done a fantastic job of drafting good talent that stays here,” said linebacker Zack Baun. “They look to build talent from within, develop, and just draft well.
I mean, it's cool that you kind of see this shift from offensive core guys. Now we're building the defensive side.
It's really a well-rounded machine around here.”
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