Follow the money to figure out why Eagles traded out of 32

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Have you checked out the Eagles’ salary cap situation in 2019 lately?

At of the start of business Friday, they were $45 million over their estimated 2019 salary cap figure of about $177 million.

The time to start addressing this isn’t next offseason. It’s now.

And that’s why the trade the Eagles made on Thursday night makes so much sense.

Because the way the Eagles built their current roster won’t work next year. They won’t have the cap space to start out with a nucleus of draft picks and then sign a bunch of mid-priced veteran free agents to fill out the roster.

So vice president of football operations Howie Roseman and vice president of player personnel Joe Douglas have to start thinking about whittling down that $45 million figure. The only way to do that is by getting rid of older, higher-priced players. And the only way to remain successful while doing that is by stockpiling draft picks.

Hence Thursday.

Veterans are expensive. Draft picks are cheap. Because of the rookie wage scale, the only way to build a team that’s elite year after year is to draft well and develop a nucleus of young players on their first contracts.

The more cheap young guys you have who can play, the fewer veterans you’ll be forced to cut to make cap space.

So getting out of 32 and getting a second-round pick this year and a second-round pick next year was absolutely the best possible move for the Eagles.

More premium picks, more chances to hit on players.

We already know the bottom of the first round is a no-man’s land for finding value. The lifeblood of the draft for the Eagles historically has been the second round. Dawk, Eric Allen, LeSean, DeSean, Randall, Ertz and so on.

The Eagles just gave themselves twice the chance of landing that kind of player over the next two years.

And since the Eagles genuinely believe the same sort of value at the positions they’re looking at exists in the middle of the second round today than at the end of the first round Thursday night, this was a no-brainer.

The Eagles believe they already have a Super Bowl roster in 2018. And they should. They’ve lost some big pieces of that team, but the bottom line is at it stands now they return 19 of 22 starters from Super Bowl LII.

The only starters they’ve lost since Feb. 4 are a 31-year-old running back, an over-priced wide receiver and an underachieving defensive end. Along with a 30-year-old nickel corner and a backup tight end.  

But the guts of the championship roster are still here. Along with a bunch of guys getting healthy who missed last year. So now it’s about building for the future. Now it’s about taking the long view. Trying to build something sustainable.

You can’t operate in a vacuum in the NFL. You have to think about 2019, 2020 and 2021 now.

And once the Eagles lock Carson Wentz up to an extension, there’s another $150 million to spread out over five of the salary cap. Right now Wentz is the 25th-highest-paid quarterback in the league. Soon he’ll be near or at the top.

There were some really good players sitting there at 32 and it can be tough watching the Eagles bypass them.

But the Eagles just won a Super Bowl. They have a roster jammed with talent that’s primed for a deep postseason run in 2018. If you consider Wentz, Jason Peters, Jordan Hicks and Chris Maragos returning healthy, you can argue that the 2018 roster is more talented than last year’s.

So Roseman and Douglas have this luxury of focusing on the future. Of taking the long view. Of doing what’s best for the long-term strength of the franchise from both a talent and financial standpoint.

For this football team, for this roster, for the way the Eagles are building something sustainable, the trade made perfect sense.

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