Eagles rumors: Goedert trade, Rodgers suitors, and Becton’s big decision

Daylight savings started on Sunday morning, and if you slept in, the first thing you probably saw on your phone was that Myles Garrett will not be a Philadelphia Eagle. He signed a mondo deal with the Browns because it turns out $40 million per year is enough to make him not want to “win and compete.”

Alas, we must move on. Free Agency begins this week, with the legal tampering period (the part where you hear about every player’s new team) opening up at noon on Monday. That means rumors are flying around. 

Goodbye Goedert?

Unfortunately, not a whole lot of those rumors are about players coming to Philadelphia. That’s probably due to a handful of the guys they could sign, like Garrett and Harold Landry, who have already signed contracts with other teams. 

Also, during the combine, PHLY’s Zach Berman reported that Howie Roseman wanted fans to be patient this offseason. If that’s what Roseman is asking for, then that means it’ll be pretty different from last season when he signed Saquon Barkley, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Bryce Huff, and Zack Baun.

He’s earned that patience. He just built the most talented roster in the NFL and won a Super Bowl, and then started the offseason off by extending Barkley and re-signing Zack Baun. Those are two huge moves to keep the team solid.

There are other guys whose futures with the Eagles are still up in the air, and in the past few days, there have been some whispers in the wind (read: tweets) about where they could go in the near future. 

Isaiah Rodgers:

On March 3rd, the Eagles announced that they were going to cut Darius Slay. After the 2022 season, the Eagles also released him, but he signed back with the team the next day. So just because he’s gone right now, it doesn’t mean that he’ll be coming back… but the chances are looking slim.

If he doesn’t get re-signed, it means someone will have to fill the cornerback position opposite of Quinyon Mitchell. Right now, there are three realistic options at that spot: Cooper DeJean, Kelee Ringo, and Isaiah Rodgers.

In 2024, DeJean was absolutely incredible playing the slot corner, so it seems like it’d be kind of foolish to move him outside full-time, and Kelee Ringo was third on the depth chart behind Rodgers.

During the season, Isaiah Rodgers did a bang-up job playing when Slay left games, but he’s about to enter free agency. It’d be cool for him to come back next season and compete for the starting spot with Ringo, but now there are rumors that other teams are interested in him as well.

The two teams that stand out on Aaron Wilson’s list are the Cowboys and the Giants. Obviously, you don’t want to see one of your players going to a divisional rival, but it feels like it’d be a little different for those two teams rather than the Commanders.

The Giants are a terrible team, and Rodgers taking money to play there means that he’d be giving up the possibility of having actual sustainable success. Unfortunately, the Myles Garrett news shows us that cash is king, so it’s a possibility.

As for the Cowboys? Woof. First, they might not be as bad as the Giants, but they’re still really stinky. Second, the Cowboys’ cornerbacks tend to have debilitating injuries, and it’d be cool for Rodgers not to have his knee explode. Third, gross.

He also just got a big Super Bowl champion tattoo with his number (34) on it. Both the Panthers and the Buccaneers already have a 34 on their roster, so it’d be weird if he went to either of those teams.

Hopefully his price doesn’t get too high, and the Eagles can re-sign him so he doesn’t have to go to one of those talent prisons. 

Mekhi Becton:

Mekhi Becton was one of the better feel-good stories of the 2024 season. He spent the first four years of this career with the New York Jets, and everything was terrible for him there. Then, after the Eagles didn’t draft an offensive lineman in the draft, they signed Becton to compete with Tyler Steen. Becton won that battle, and the rest is delightful history.

It all kind of culminated after the Super Bowl, where there was a slow-motion video of him sitting on the field, letting all of the emotion wash over him. You can pretty much pinpoint the exact moment where he comes to terms with what he had done over the past year. It rocked.

Now comes the time for free agency. Initially, the thought was that Becton would be fielding offers from a bunch of teams who would be paying more money than the Eagles. This meant that if he wanted to stay in Philadelphia, he’d have to take a discount.

It’s not a crazy thought because he’s seen how terrible life can be when you play for a bad team. He’s also seen how good life can be when you’re playing on a good team, with a good offensive line coach, and in between two of the best offensive linemen in the world.

It turns out that might be kind of right. Sportskeeda’s Tony Pauline posted some of his insider’s notes from the combine. “I’m told the preference for Becton is to re-sign with the Eagles in free agency, as he’s comfortable with the franchise that helped him reclaim his career. However, it’s a matter of whether Philadelphia can fit him in the budget. It may take a while for Becton to sign with a team, hence, I don’t see something happening immediately once free agency opens.”

There are a few ways you can read that. First, Becton is willing to wait to see what the Eagles do during free agency. It could be that they told him they’re going to throw an offer his way once they find out who they’re able to sign and get all of their ducks in a row. 

Or, he’s going to test the free-agent market, and the Eagles will make an offer to him based on what other teams offer him. It seems like this is the kind of thing that happens more often than a player taking a hometown discount. 

CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco has some wild takes, but the guy has been around for a long time, and if he says he’s hearing things, it means they’re probably based in some sort of fact. If he says the market for guards is going to be nuts, that’s something to keep in mind. 

It’d be super sick if Becton took the discount, but if it’s a situation where a team throws a $12+ million offer at him, it’d be surprising if he took a $9 million offer from the Eagles. 

Hopefully Tony Pauline is right that it’ll take a minute for the Mekhi Becton domino to fall. The longer he takes to sign with a team probably means that more of the available right guard jobs around the NFL are getting filled, and he’d be a little more incentivized to stay with the band.

Dallas Goedert:

We kind of knew something had to happen with Dallas Goedert this year, but it hurts to see real reports. 

It’s just a rumor at this point, and there’s no way of knowing how this will turn out until it happens, but it still stinks to know that the Eagles are willing to move on from Dallas Goedert. 

The trade compensation that Josina Anderson is talking about here is pretty interesting and predictably bizarre. She said that the Eagles would take draft picks from drafts two or three years in the future, which is always tough to wrap your head around.

If you remember, when the Eagles traded Haason Reddick to the Jets last offseason, it was for a conditional pick in the 2026 draft. Teams tend to value future draft picks waaaay less than Howie does, so it makes sense that he would throw something out there like this. I’m sure whatever fourth-round pick he gets will end up being super valuable, but it doesn’t do anything to quench that thirst for immediate gratification… But that’s why we’re not general managers.

The part about the Eagles being okay with taking a lower pick if a team is cool with a salary adjustment makes this all the more complicated. The translation for that: The Eagles are looking for a future fourth-round pick, but they’d be down for a future fifth if the other team is willing to pay some of the money the Eagles owe Goedert. It’s a salary cap play.