JuJu Smith-Schuster reportedly turned down more money from Eagles to return to Steelers [UPDATE]

UPDATE: Well, this is strange. Schefter basically immediately reversing course.

ORIGINAL STORY BELOW.

The Philadelphia Eagles haven’t been very active in free agency, to no surprise, but apparently not for a total lack of effort.

The Eagles actually offered “more money” on a multi-year deal to free agent wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, who returned to the Pittsburgh Steelers on a one-year, $8 million contract on Friday morning. This much was reported by NFL insider Adam Schefter.

Multiple things to unpack from this news:

• Maybe not the best sign of your franchise’s health that a free agent is turning down more money to play with a 39-year-old quarterback who looked cooked at the end of last season.
• The Eagles don’t have a lot of cap space but they’re not just sitting on their hands.
• Signing JuJu was a reasonable target for the Eagles from a profile standpoint. The 2017 second-round pick is only 24 years old. He also might be a little undervalued after his first two seasons went better than his last two. But maybe he’s just not as good as he was once thought to be and paying him would’ve been a mistake.
• No player ran more routes from the slot than JuJu last season. The Eagles appear to have interest in upgrading on Greg Ward, as they should.
• Perhaps the Eagles will try to sign another free agent wide receiver? We recently wrote about how they should be looking to take advantage of a soft market at that position.
• While the Eagles’ exact offer isn’t known, NFL Network’s Taylor Bisciotti reported the other ones: