Eagles 2023 free agents: Team is facing a lot of key decisions

Well, the 2022 NFL season is officially over, and one the Eagles most talented and dynamic teams in franchise history will look at least somewhat different in 2023.

The good news, when Howie Roseman decided to focus on younger talent a few years ago, he also secured most of the offensive weapons for several years — like, Jalen Hurts and DeVonta Smith. The team also already signed A.J. Brown to a four-year deal through 2026, and Dallas Goedert signed an extension through the 2025 season. So, the core offensive group is still in tact, plus, regardless of what they do with Miles Sanders, Kenny Gainwell still has a couple years on his rookie contract.

Of the 19 free agents heading into the offseason, 11 are on defense, so that is probably going to need to be the focus both in free agency and the draft. Three of those players are highly unlikely to be back, including Linval Joseph, Ndamukong Suh, and Robert Quinn — all were older veterans brought in late in the season to help with the Super Bowl push.

Technically Jason Kelce isn’t a free agent this offseason, but it’s well-known that the veteran center and team re-work one-year deals for him as he mulls retirement annually. His post-game comments didn’t imply that he was likely going to hang up his cleats this year, and the Eagles would be insane not to keep him around as long as possible. (They do have Cam Jurgens waiting in the wings, though he could potentially play at guard until Kelce is no longer around.)

One player the Eagles are might have to say goodbye to is Brandon Graham. The 13-year veteran has been inching closer to retirement the past couple years, and it’ll be interesting to see what he chooses to do based on the high level he was able to play at this season and how the season ended. It might be a joint decision with Graham and the team, in that I would doubt BG plans to play anywhere else, but it’s also not a given that Roseman would give him another contract. The DE has talked about wanting to work with the team on staff once he does retire, so at least, either way he should still be around in some capacity.

It would be expensive, and I’m sure controversial, but I’d personally love to see Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave back in 2023. Cox and the team have had an up and down relationship over the years, but his stability in the DL room shouldn’t be under-appreciated. Sure, he didn’t put up ground-breaking numbers this season, but he often drew double teams that opened things up for other guys to get to the quarterback. Hargrave was habitually overlooked this season, but was dominant all year and would be a big loss for the Eagles.

As for the secondary, it would be great to have C.J. Gardner-Johnson back in the fold — his energy and attitude certainly fits in well with the Eagles and Nick Sirianni. It would be tough to imagine both he and Marcus Epps re-signing, and James Bradberry could be out of the question depending on what kind of money he’s looking for — Spotrac has Bradberry’s market value at about 3-year, $51.5 million, which could be way more than Roseman wants to spend. Feels important to note that Spotrac also has CJGJ’s market value at 5-year, $70 million... which is awfully high.

Who do you want to see back in 2023?