Eagles trade deadline fallout: Grading Howie Roseman’s no-trade decision

The Philadelphia Eagles did not make any moves before the NFL trade deadline. Maybe general manager Howie Roseman did his wheeling and dealing before the season when he traded a third-round pick to the Washington Commanders for wide receiver Jahan Dotson. Maybe that’s it, or maybe nothing ended up working out for Howie this year.

Just be careful in the next couple of days when you hear news saying, ‘X team was trying really hard to trade for Y player’ because that’s akin to an owner or general manager saying they were really high on a player they didn’t draft even though they had the chance to.

In reality, the Eagles have what they have, and every other addition is going to have to come from free agency. Is that a good thing? Eh … Kind of.

The Eagles didn’t make any trade deadline moves and that’s okay, maybe.

The Eagles could’ve used a little help on defense. There’s not a proven one-for-one replacement for Zack Baun if he misses time and Bryce Huff has been far less than spectacular. That being said, the defense has been firing on all cylinders recently, so trading for help wasn’t exactly a pressing matter.

There are reasons to be happy with Howie Roseman not making any mid-season moves, and of course, there are reasons to feel uneasy about it. 

Reasons to be fine with the Eagles’ lack of action:

On Monday, Tom Pelissero said that he wouldn’t be surprised if Bryce Huff drew some attention during the trade deadline because he only played six snaps against the Jaguars because of a wrist issue.

That’s very peculiar because you would think that a player who’s injured would just straight-up not play at all. When Nick Sirianni said that Huff was dealing with an injury during his post-game press conference, it seemed a little wonky.

Turns out, there was nothing wonky about it. On Tuesday, Vic Fangio, who is as transparent as a bird-killing window, was asked about Huff’s lack of playing time against the Jaguars. Vic said, “He’s got a wrist issue he’s dealing with that flared up in pregame, so you always kind of feel that somebody that’s 100% is better than somebody that’s dealing with an ailment,” Later on he continued, “When a guy’s dealing with something, you rather play a guy who’s 100% or close to 100%. Then at the end of the game, we had those two drives where guys got gassed.”

So it sounds like Huff wasn’t in a Devante Adams-adjacent situation where he had some mystery injury that was going to get cleared up at the exact second he gets traded. This is an actual injury that he’s dealing with, and he wouldn’t have played at all in Week 8 if the game wasn’t close and the other edge rushers weren’t totally spent.

So that’s good, right? It’s not a thing where everyone involved mutually and openly hates the situation. That’d stink if that were the case, especially since Huff never got traded.

Vic was also asked about whether or not he expected a new player before the trade deadline. He said, “I haven’t heard anything that we’re involved with anything either way, so I’m assuming that we’re not involved with anything. I’m pleased with what we got and to move forward with it.”

So again, if you want to spin the Eagles' lack of activity in a positive way, this shows that they’re not forcing anything. Howie Roseman trusts his defensive coordinator, and if Vic is happy with what he’s got, then don’t do anything to sour him… especially since he's a 66-year-old curmudgeon.

Fangio has earned the benefit of the doubt. He has a great eye for talent and his scheme has been proven to be anywhere from ‘super awesome’ to ‘just okay.’ If he says he’s happy with what he has, then there’s no reason to change it.

Offensively, the Eagles are set. It would’ve been nice to see some kind of upgrade at RB2, but it wasn’t a necessity or anything like that. The Eagles like Kenny Gainwell and he’s good behind this offensive line, but it’d be hard to find a running back who isn’t. It’d just be cool if Saquon could take some plays off more often and his replacement was someone a little better than Kenny G.

Reasons to be worried a little bit:

We’re doing the Bryce Huff thing for the rest of the season. It hasn’t been great or even good. A $17 million pass rusher should be producing about 10 times more than Huff is. Mix that with the wrist thing that apparently should be keeping him off the field, and we’re going to be looking at even less production.

He might have a good game here or there and maybe he’ll start to do consistently better than what he’s doing now, but it’s clear that he has a low ceiling for what the Eagles are asking him to do.

Luckily Nolan Smith has been playing pretty well. You’re right to be much more comfortable with him getting more playing time now than you were two months ago.

Another reason to be worried is because of the future draft picks. Right now the Eagles still have seven picks in the 2025 Draft: a first, a second, a third, and a fourth-round pick, and three fifth-round picks. They didn’t trade anyone away, so they’re stuck with those seven picks… for now.

Howie tied a record for the most trades during the draft in 2024 with eight trades in the three days. He’ll end up making some moves during the 2025 draft, but it just would’ve been nice if he was able to get rid of someone relatively inconsequential to get another fifth or sixth-round pick or something better in 2026.

The rating scale goes: Terrible, Bad, Fine, Good, Great. Other contenders in the NFC East certainly made their teams better and they had good trade deadlines. The Detroit Lions added edge rusher Za’Darius Smith and the Washington Commanders added cornerback Marshon Lattimore.

This trade deadline was perfectly fine for the Eagles. They didn’t add someone old like a 38-year-old Calais Campbell who used to be good but would inevitably be bad, and they didn’t add anyone who could bolster some of the weak spots on defense. But again, Vic gets what Vic wants. If Vic doesn’t want, then Vic doesn’t get.