It sucks to say but the Eagles are probably going to be better than the Lions for the foreseeable future. This is incredible GM work. Holmes is a good GM… but this is what a great GM looks like. Roseman will go down as one of the best if not the best GM in NFL history. He finds absurd value in free agency, he fleeces teams in trades and is really starting to dominate the draft.
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They better hit on a lot of those picks, because they are going to be in salary cap hell pretty darn quick with the way they’ve thrown void years in almost every contract.
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Exactly this is what the great franchises do.
I don’t get how some can’t see it.
That being said,
If we lose CD3 & Zeitler
But replace with DJ Reed & Scherff
Can’t complain about that
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I already showed you the list of all-time comp picks, half of them were terrible franchises. And the Eagles weren’t in the top ten. They’re in a bubble right now where they’re paying their top stars and thus hemorrhaging talent they’d surely prefer to keep. We are not yet at that point of our build, but we will be soon. I expect us to have many comp picks starting a couple of years from now, provided they don’t change the rules.
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The Eagles have more than $400 million in deferred salary cap hits in void years. The next highest are the Browns are at $200 million.
Literally no one has ever done it like the Eagles before so it’s really not what great franchises do.
The Eagles have also shed a ton of talent and snaps this offseason: Becton (903 snaps), Sweat (622), Slay (699), Williams (501), CJGJ (908), Rodgers (328) and Bradberry (missed the season) are all gone.
So yeah, they’ll get a bunch of comp picks, but the bigger picture is that they’re pushing the boundaries of the salary cap (helped by an owner who fronts the cash for these void year contracts) and have to reset a bit this offseason.
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Don’t ruin the narrative.
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Where is this, would like to see that. Thanks.
As you can see the Cowboys, Cards, Giants, Bengals and Seahawks are top ten. Eagles are close and will probably be top ten within 2 years, but this narrative that they’ve been abusing this system to get so talented doesn’t hold up. Conversely the Saints are dead last (predictably), but have one of the better overall records during the comp pick era.
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They’re both great GMs. Good fortune helped the Eagles this past season—if they had even half the injuries Detroit sustained, they don’t even make the playoffs.
The Lions have the better roster.
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Holmes has been a GM for how long?
Roseman has been a GM for how long?
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Remember when he traded down a couple picks in the 3rd round leaving us Alim McNeil? He assumed we wouldnt take him after going with Levi in round 2. He thought he could get a free pcik and still get his guy. He was so pissed we took Alim. It was a great moment in draft history.
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Yeah, he was livid. Messed that one up.
However he then took Milton Williams, who just signed with the Pats for damn near $30M/year and got them another 3rd rounder, so it worked out alright for him in the end. (And Alim is still by far the better player, Williams is a great pass-rusher but well below average against the run).
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Patriots were doing it
SF and Balt have been doing it
Philly was doing it.
I don’t get why you wouldn’t want Brad Holmes to have more draft picks
And less DJ Charks, Moseley, Davenport, Tyrell Williams etc.
That’s the point
I don’t care who was drafted with comp picks, I know Kerby Joseph was.
But get more ammo for Holmes. Simple
Post fits here as well, if not better than where I originally posted it
I think you will see more comp picks coming as Holmes key draft picks get extensions and they cannot keep them all.
That was the point on the tenures of each GM, Philly GM has been there longer with more players leaving. Just a matter of time til he won’t be able to keep everyone, which I believe has been @Thats2 point all along.
Holmes just signed extensions for key players from his first draft and soon doing the same for his second.
So, lets let it play out instead of being so now now now now 
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Well, there’s an opportunity cost. It’s not like he just gets to add more draft picks for free. You either lose something (AG) or you don’t gain something (DJ Reed).
Philly has a ton of picks coming, but they had to lose really good players to get them. Josh Sweat, Milton Williams, Mekhi Becton, etc… guys I’m sure they would have loved to keep. They’re worse now than if those guys stayed on their team.
Now Howie’s been very good about replenishing his stock with draft picks and cheap FAs, but miss for a year or two and things start to look a lot different. Very Saints-y.
The truth is the Saints and Eagles have taken the same approach, it’s just the Eagles have been far, far better as evaluators, coupled with some awful luck for the Saints (I mean, when they re-upped so much of their talent in 2018-1019 counting on a rising cap, how could they have predicted a pandemic of all things?)
I’m gonna post something a Saints fan posted over on reddit. It’s very long, but goes in depth about the strategy the Eagles are using (and compares it with the Saints). I don’t disagree with the approach, but you really do have to hit, which Howie has been doing at an inordinate, some would say unsustainable rate.
STUCK IN CAP HELL: Not really though
Writing this out because of how people look at the way certain teams manage the cap. The narrative around these teams feels like people take the easy argument instead of looking at the deeper concerns as to why a team didn’t succeed. Cap management has strategy to it, just like on the field.
First, objective statement, having lots of cap space doesn’t win you any games. There are no bonus points, you don’t get a free win for every 10 million you save. Having good players does.
Certain teams with cash happy owners - see: Eagles or king of them all the saints utilize this by putting up the money to defer paying a bill. This benefits teams long term due to the true value of a cap dollar.
If I buy a phone for $1,000 and have two options to pay for it, once at time of sale where my bank account has $1,000, or a year later when my bank account has $2,000, everyone would choose the latter.
Whats the downside? The phone I bought 2 years ago for $500 when I had $500 I’m now paying for when I have $1000, and am shopping for a new phone.
Now there’s some funny math behind that where technically it’s being paid up front via signing bonuses turned into voids. So it’s like your dad buying the phone but you pay him back the same amount but deferred. Interest free loan, but the cash comes out of your dad’s pocket when you buy it.
It’s all deferring to maximize your dollars and keep good players on the roster.
Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. Eagles have kept an incredible core together using this strategy and they lifted the trophy because of it. Because it worked, howie roseman is praised, justifiably.
I think this is the best way to manage the cap and keep yourself competitive so you truly are a few pieces away at any time. If you think tearing it down to the studs and having cap room available to you makes you ready to compete, look at the Jaguars as a prime example. 17 drafts in the top 10 since 2000. Not exactly a history of success there.
The saints are the leading "with what money??? team in the NFL right now. They made an active gamble heading into 2018 and beyond to keep their core players together following 3 incredible draft years. They believed they had a contender and truly were only a few pieces away. Unfortunately they came up short, and now people treat the results as if the process is wrong.
By utilizing future money at a lower per dollar value, you can extend your competitive window and keep players you wouldn’t otherwise, or sign new players you typically couldn’t by following traditional cap rules. See: justin reid, derek carr.
The biggest issue with this is betting on the wrong players, injuries, or an outlier like such REDUCING the cap instead of the number always climbing. Saints did this, timing worked worse for them, eagles didn’t. Process not results.
Many ESPN style talking heads will give surface level answers on some of these small market teams that are not true contenders, but the discussion around the saints is always the most egregious. The saints haven’t failed to win because they have no cap space. They’ve failed to win because of bad coaching hires, injuries to these high level players and at times bad luck.
Nobody would have bet on micheal thomas being an injured free agent when they signed his contract the year following his OPOY season. The saints and many others assumed a much longer shelf life on him. Not having players like him, or your vets on those contracts taking a step backwards, see ryan ramcyzk’s degenerative knees.
That is going to make the strategy itself look faulty.
If you use this correctly, your owner is willing to write the cheques, you will absolutely maximize your ability to take in and retain good players. Good players win games.
TLDR: Total cap space year over year doesn’t matter to teams willing to put up the up front cash to keep good players on the roster. Good players win games, cap space doesnt. Saints gambled and lost. Eagles gambled and won.
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He’s mortgaged so much of the future, he has to let good players go. That’s why he’s getting compensatory picks. Not a horrible strategy, but he has to keep hitting on his draft picks so that he can pay the mortgage from the cost of fielding prior years teams. The Lions need to spend another $400+ million to catch up to cost that Roseman has mortgaged.
Roseman is a very good GM, How good is Holmes? TBD
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The more the team is successful, the more good players leave and create additional comp picks. You can’t resign them all.
Roseman became a GM in 2010, Holmes in 2021. He will get there…give him a chance. Holmes is the Executive of the year, just like Rosemann was. It takes time to be an “awesome” GM and collect so many compensation picks.
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What were your thoughts on Roseman after his first four years as the Eagles’ GM?
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And how much of that 400M is in bogus Option Years vs the amortized amounts where you’re still getting production from the players?