The ultimate offseason wishlist for Eagles fans

While the Philadelphia Eagles’ 2024 season is alive and thriving, there are plenty of teams whose 2024 season is dead and rotting. Those teams and their fans have already moved onto the offseason, bookmarked Tankathon, and are drooling while they think about their new quarterbacks. 

That’s not us. That being said, it’s the holidays, and in the spirit of making wishlists, it seems appropriate to make a couple. WISHLIST FOR THE 2024 SEASON: Win everything. Okay, now that’s done. It’s time to make another one for the offseason that’s still a ways away.

The Eagles have a busy offseason ahead of them

The Eagles could be a victim of their own success come the offseason. They’ve got a lot of players who are playing much better than anyone (except Howie Roseman, probably) thought they would. When that’s the case, they’re worth a whole lot more money come free agency.

Figure out a way to keep Baun, Becton, Williams, and Rodgers

The only problem with paying Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, and DeVonta Smith oodles and oodles of money is that Howie won’t be able to pay everyone else that should get paid. That stinks. 

Zack Baun was the steal of free agency in 2024. He’s on a one-year deal for $1.6 million and he’s playing like a $10 million player. The Eagles could get him at a discount if they extend him before the end of the season. Making sure he doesn’t become a free agent would nip the problem in the bud.

Mekhi Becton came to the Eagles as a type of rehabilitation because his time with the Jets was, simply put, horrible. It turns out that it wasn’t rehab, it was to become a starter. Everyone has different opinions on the validity of PFF grades, but Mekhi has been constantly getting some of the highest PFF grades week in and week out. If he becomes a free agent he’ll make a good chunk of cash, but it’d be awesome if he came back and the Eagles could return all five starters on the offensive line. 

Milton Williams is a tricky one. He was the Eagles third-round draft pick in 2021. That means this is the last year of his rookie contract and he’ll be a free agent after this season as well, which is a huge bummer. Going into this season, he was good, but now he’s great. Unfortunately, he might be playing himself out of the Eagles’ price range. If Milton goes to the market and gets paid a buttload it’d be really smart, but it’d stink.

It feels like there’s a pretty good chance Isaiah Rodgers is going to be important in the future. Whenever Darius Slay goes out with an injury (which happens a lot more frequently than anyone wants), Rodgers is the one who comes in for him. Slay’s turning 34 in a few weeks and it seems like his time in the NFL or with the Eagles is unfortunately coming to an end. Isaiah could be a relatively cheap guy to extend or re-sign. 

If things go great, the Eagles sign three of these guys. If things go poorly, it’s just one… but this is a wishlist, so let’s aim for three. 

Draft Lane Johnson’s replacement

Lane Johnson has not only been a staple for the Eagles for 12 years but he’s been an anchor and a keystone as well. Even though he still plays like one of the best tackles in the NFL, he’s been hinting at retirement for a couple of years —maybe that comes after next season, or maybe it’s after two seasons.

Whatever the case, the Eagles drafted Jason Kelce’s replacement, Cam Jurgens, two years before he retired. They’re not shy about drafting offensive linemen early and developing them so that they can slide right into a starting position as seamlessly as possible. 

Luckily, ESPN’s Field Yates just came out with a mock draft for every team’s first-round picks. He has the Eagles taking Cameron Williams, the Texas Longhorns’ right tackle. He has the Eagles picking at 28, so we just have to hope that he’s there at 32. 

Do something with Bryce Huff

It would be cool if Bryce Huff came off the IR in Week 16, lit the world on fire, and became a player that’s worth the $17 million that he’s getting paid. It just really doesn’t seem like that’s what’s going to happen.

When the season ends, hopefully Howie can wheel, deal, and finagle. It could be in the form of a trade during the draft, a restructuring of Huff’s deal, or anything else that really smart general managers do that smooth brains like us didn’t know was a possibility. Whatever it is, something has to be done to actually get something out of a player that isn’t working out. 

Hope the Giants keep Joe Schoen

The first non-Eagles thing that we can wish for, it’s that the Giants keep themselves in the hellhole that they dug and the best way they can do that is by not firing their general manager Joe Schoen. 

On HBO’s Hard Knocks: Offseason with the New York Giants, every decision he made was exposed and mocked… openly… by everyone… deservedly. It’d be hard not to fire a guy that is the picture in the dictionary under the word “Laughing Stock,” but it would also be the most Giantsy thing in the world if they didn’t fire him.

Anything that divisional opponents can do to not only tank their seasons, but also seasons for the foreseeable future is a good thing.

Hope the Cowboys change nothing

The Cowboys are terrible and the coaches of terrible teams get fired. Hopefully Jerry Jones will continue his boneheadedness towards how he runs his franchise. We know that Mike McCarthy lied when he interviewed to get the head coaching job, so hopefully he’ll lie again to keep the job. 

Luckily, they’re incredibly locked in with Dak Prescott and Ceedee Lamb because of their mondo-sized contracts, and Stephen Jones is already lowering everyone’s standards by saying that the Cowboys will be in rough shape with the salary cap in 2025.

Keep your fingers crossed that the Jones family never learns anything about manipulating the salary cap, not waiting until the last minute to pay their players, signing good players in free agency, or winning. 

There’s not a lot that’s on the wishlist: just keeping all of the good players that will be free agents, drafting a replacement for a future Hall-of-Famer, dealing with a player who’s not producing for how much he’s getting paid, and making sure the bad teams in the NFC East stay bad. That feels fair and not greedy at all.