Eagles News: Quez Watkins trade?

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Potential NFL salary cap cuts per team for 2023 season: Joe Mixon, Matt Ryan and more - The Athletic
Potential trade cut: WR Quez Watkins. 2023 cap hit: $2.78 million. Cap savings if cut or traded before June 1: $2.74 million. Dead money if cut or traded before June 1: $42,415. The Eagles don’t really have a proper answer for this prompt. There are a few players with contracts designed for them to be post-June 1 releases (Fletcher Cox for sure, along with perhaps Brandon Graham and Jason Kelce, depending on their decisions about their futures). Watkins had an underwhelming third season in Philadelphia as the No. 3 wide receiver following A.J. Brown’s addition to the offense. Upgrading from Watkins won’t be the Eagles’ top offseason priority, but it’s something they’d like to do, perhaps in the middle rounds of the draft. Watkins still offers top-end speed, so if there’s a team desperate for some, Howie Roseman would certainly be open to a deal.

2023 NFL offseason: All 32 teams’ WR situations ahead of free agency, draft - NFL.com
Brown proved to be everything the Eagles thought when they acquired him on draft day last year. He and Smith form a potent duo capable of winning at every level. Watkins supplies deep speed, even if we’d like to see more consistency. The Eagles have loads of other pending free agents to worry about. Moving on!

Darius Slay says Eagles DB coach Dennard Wilson should be a defensive coordinator (and his teammates agree) - BGN
The Eagles have interviewed a handful of candidates to fill Jonathan Gannon’s former role as Defensive Coordinator, but on Friday night, some of the players voiced their support of an internal candidate: DB Coach/Defensive Passing Game Coordinator Dennard Wilson. There have been a few unconventional staff hires throughout the league the past couple days, and veteran CB Darius Slay pointed out that Wilson’s experience set him up for a bigger role.

Some Draft Talk - Iggles Blitz
My preference at 10. 1 – CB Devon Witherspoon, 2 – OT Peter Skoronski, 3 – CB Christian Gonzalez. Trading back a few spots would probably be the smartest move. The Eagles need picks and would still have good options.

Roob’s Observations: Why was Trey Sermon on the roster all year? - NBCSP
1. Why would the Eagles claim Trey Sermon on waivers from the 49ers before the season and then let him spend virtually the entire season in mothballs on the bench? The 49ers drafted Sermon in the third round in 2021, and he had a decent rookie year, averaging 4.1 yards on 41 carries. He didn’t have a very good training camp, and they released him on Aug. 31 with the intention of adding him to their practice squad. But the Eagles jumped in and claimed him, then kept him on their active roster all year while playing him in only two games – the Jaguars and Cards in early October. Sermon played just eight snaps and got two carries – he was 2-for-19 vs. the Jags. He didn’t dress out for any of the Eagles’ last 15 games. Why would the Eagles claim him and use a roster spot on him all year and then not play him? Here’s my theory: I think the Eagles’ brought in Sermon solely with 2023 in mind. They knew if they put him on the practice squad they’d lose him and they also knew that Miles Sanders, Kenny Gainwell and Boston Scott would be their three running backs this year. But they were also well aware that Sanders and Scott would be hitting free agency after the season, and with Sanders likely to be too expensive to keep, Howie Roseman was already thinking about 2023 before 2022 began. He figured bring in a talented running back, let him learn Nick Sirianni’s offense and get used to position coach Jemal Singleton, protect him from poachers by keeping him on the 53 instead of the practice squad and when you start building that 2023 running back room, you already have a 24-year-old former 3rd-round pick who’s comfortable here and knows the offense. Gainwell may not be a 15-carry guy, but the combination of the speedy, elusive Gainwell and the powerhouse Sermon seems like a great starting place for a running back room in a post-Sanders world. That’s my theory and I’m sticking with it.

Odds for which team drafts RB Bijan Robinson - DraftKings Nation
So, what about Robinson? Will he go in the first round? It sure seems like he’s locked into the first round at this point, but how early he’ll go is an open question. The Eagles are the favorites right now over at DraftKings Sportsbook, but that would mean Robinson would have to fall to the 31st pick. If that happens, I do agree that Philadelphia, with their commitment to the run, would snatch him up. The Buffalo Bills are next in line in the odds and pick 28th and they still seem to be looking for that game-changing back to pair with Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs, but they also will be looking for a wide receiver to upgrade on Gabe Davis. Dallas is next in line due to Jerry Jones, but a lot will hinge on what they do with free agent Tony Pollard and if they restructure Ezekiel Elliott’s contract. The Cowboys need o-line and wide receiver help more.

There’s a void between the Eagles and Giants - Big Blue View
The non-guaranteed out years are the key to both contracts, much more so than the annual average values that people obsess about. Two guaranteed years is plenty of time to find out if Jones can be elite with better weapons and protection. If he plays like a top five QB by 2024, then the Giants will be happy to pay him the Mahomes-like higher Year 3 and 4 salaries under the likely higher salary cap amounts in those years. If he regresses, the Giants can move on with only limited damage from the four void years, not so different from what the Eagles did when Howie Roseman decided that Carson Wentz was not an elite QB. Either way, Jones would get the same $80M in cash by the end of Year 2.

Cowboys offseason 2023: Jalen Ramsey on the trade market should tempt Dallas - Blogging The Boys
Trading for Ramsey would undoubtedly be a ‘Super Bowl or bust’ move for a Cowboys front office that has been unwilling to push in their chips. Jerry Jones did mention at the Senior Bowl “he knows how to take risks” and “if it would make some sense, [he’s] definitely got risk-taking in [him].” Based on Pelissero’s report, the league will know soon enough if Ramsey will be moved again. If he finds himself in Dallas like what could have happened on draft night nine years ago, then Jones will certainly be risking it all for someone he hopes could be the next Sanders for the Cowboys.

Tilman Fertitta has placed a bid on the Washington Commanders - Hogs Haven
The sale of the Washington Commanders is an ever-evolving beast with stories coming out almost daily that can seem conflicting. Dan Snyder has been known to use certain media outlets in New York to get his message out, and that seems to be happening again with this sale. The range of “bids” placed on the team started with reports from Forbes that there were several well north of $7 billion. That number dropped to topping out at $6.3 billion, and now there’s speculation that the official bids might get to Snyder’s new minimum of $6 billion. The number of bidders has also ranged from 2-4, but only 76ers owner Josh Harris was a known bidder. That changed last night when the Washington Post reported that Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta was named as the 2nd bidder trying to purchase the Washington Commanders from Dan and Tanya Snyder. They said his bid was slightly above $5.5 billion and he is not believed to be a front-runner to purchase the team. He was one of the prospective buyers who visited the team, joining Harris as one of the billionaires to get the full tour.

Explaining the Post June 1 Designation - Over The Cap
The post June 1 does not help a team become salary cap compliant in any possible way. We already discussed that the cap savings don’t occur until June 2nd, but you also have to keep the player on the roster through the first day of free agency. He can be released once the new league year begins but before that date he has to be on the 90 man roster. To be eligible he can not have his contract altered once the prior regular season ends. That is to prevent a team from artificially lowering the carry cost of the contract from March through June 1. The final thing is that there is no such thing as a post June 1 trade designation. The Packers can not trade Aaron Rodgers in March and declare it a post June 1 trade to break up the salary cap charges across the 2023 and 2024 league years. If Green Bay needed to split the cost (Rodgers costs more on the cap to trade than keep) they would have to find a team willing to delay processing any trade for Rodgers until June 2nd. If they trade him before that date there is no other option but to take all of the dead money in 2023. So to summarize- You can only use the post June 1 on two players per roster, not on an infinite number of players. The salary cap benefit of the June 1 is not realized during free agency and is used to create cap room for summer and in season needs. There is no post June 1 trade designation available to any team.

2023 NFL Scouting Combine Preview: Edge Rushers - PE.com
Myles Murphy (Clemson) – A popular Top 10 selection in many mock drafts, Murphy really looks the part at 6-foot-5, 275 pounds, but his movement skills at that size are impressive as well. Ranked as the No. 3 Freak in College Football by Bruce Feldman last summer, it’s expected that Murphy will break 4.60 in the 40-yard dash, which would make his Speed Score one of the best of any edge rusher in recent memory. Murphy’s explosiveness shows up for him on contact as well, where the power in his lower half allows him to push tackles around consistently off the edge on his way to the quarterback.

Ranking top HBCU prospects for 2023 NFL draft - ESPN
1. Isaiah Land, OLB, Florida A&M. HT: 6-foot-3 | WT: 226 pounds | Class: SeniorProjected draft range: Mid-to-late Day 3. A highly productive pass-rusher, Land had his best season in 2021. He finished with 19.5 sacks and earned the Buck Buchanan Award as the FCS Defensive Player of the Year. Land is lanky but has burst, bend and a quick first step out of the starting blocks, which was routinely too much for FCS offensive tackles to handle. He finished last season with 12 tackles for loss and eight sacks over nine games. We saw him play primarily standup outside linebacker at the Senior Bowl, and that is likely his position at the next level. Dropping into coverage will be an adjustment for him, but he’ll mainly be a designated pass-rusher early in his career while he continues to gain weight. For teams seeking immediate help on obvious passing downs, Land could be an added boost.

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