Report: “Eagles are likely to let Nick Foles free and clear”

Denver radio host Cecil Lammey made some “news” on Monday by reporting on what the Philadelphia Eagles plan to do with Nick Foles this offseason. Via 104.3 The Fan:

“Talking to sources today, I found out that the Philadelphia Eagles are likely to let Nick Foles free and clear — without any sort of [franchise] tag and trade scenario, which is something people thought they might do. They thought they might go ahead and tag him and try to trade him away. But from what I’m told, they don’t have the salary cap space to do that. Because of that, you’re going to see Nick Foles free and clear.”

I put “news” in quotes because, while I don’t doubt that Lammey heard something from a source, I do feel like this report is basically common sense. It doesn’t take inside information to know the Eagles are limited on cap space.

The most likely projected outcome with Foles has always been that the Eagles will pick up his $20 million option for 2019 and Foles will pay back $2 million to void that deal in order to enter free agency.

It doesn’t make to straight up decline Foles’ option because then the Eagles wouldn’t get $2 million back. It also would eliminate the slight chance that Foles doesn’t opt out and the Eagles could then trade him.

Tagging and trading Foles, while not impossible, was never a likely outcome due to the complications surrounding that situation.

With Foles expected to walk in free agency, the Eagles will hope he signs a big contract with a new team so that Philadelphia will be awarded a third-round compensatory pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.