Philadelphia Eagles: Extending Isaac Seumalo is a worthy venture

While Isaac Seumalo has yet to reach his final NFL form, Howie Roseman’s decision to extend the Oregon State guard is a pretty safe bet for the right price.

With the City of Brotherly Love currently enthralled in ‘Bryce Harper Mania‘, it’s easy to forget that the NFL’s 2019 calendar years officially begins on March 13th at 4 pm, kicking off one of the most important offseasons in Philadelphia Eagles history.

With dozens of players’ futures up in the air and a wealth of potential from which to draw from, Howie Roseman has to be excited about what the future holds for the Super Bowl 52 champions.

However, apparently, Roseman isn’t ready to wait until the clock strikes 5, as he’s just made his third major extension to lock up a key piece of the team’s championship run moving forward.

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That’s right, in the waning hours of the 2018 season, Roseman has decided to lock up Isaac Seumalo, the team’s on-again, off-again left guard to a brand new 3-year deal.

Though the actual parameters of the deal have yet to be disclosed, making the actual transaction very tricky to judge honestly, the decision itself is more than sound, especially when you consider the team’s outlook over the next few seasons.

As things previously stood with Seumalo, the third-round pick out of Oregon State was slated to enter the final year of his four-year, $2.4 million deal. While his cap hit, about $749,000 was a major bargain for a starting caliber left guard, even one considered below average at this point, it’s conceivable that he could have earned a much larger payday upon the season’s conclusion.

However, Seumalo could have also tried a little too hard, like he tended to do last season, and forced Doug Pederson to re-engage his guard rotation that plagued the team at times through 2016 and 2017.

While Seumalo may not be an elite guard like, say, Marshal Yanda, Quenton Nelson, or even Philly’s own Brandon Brooks, he is still an intriguing, high upside 25-year-old who could fill a more prominent role with some extra seasoning. With experience playing both guard and center, it’s not outside the realm of possibility to imagine Seumalo filling a position on the Eagles line for years to come, especially if Jason Kelce hangs up his cleats after the 2020 season.

But for that to happen, Seumalo has to first find his footing at the NFL level and become a rock in the trenches, a task that’s easier said than done.

With only 15 starts over his first 36 games in the league, Seumalo has looked like a certified bruiser one game, and a certified backup the next, making his long-term potential fairly hard to judge. While 25 is still very young in pretty much any field, in sports, especially the NFL, players are typically expected to be entering into, if not firmly in their primes by their mid-20s. If Seumalo is still inconsistent during his fourth professional season, it’s worth considering whether he will ever become more than a rotational player.

Locking Seumalo up for three more years now ensures that Philly will have a chance to see his progression through.

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Best case scenario, Isaac Seumalo thrives between Kelce and Jason Peters as the team’s unquestioned starter, becomes a stalwart member of the line for the foreseeable future, and blocks Carson Wentz‘s left side for the next decade, and worst case, the Eagles just (potentially) overpaid for a backup with extensive experience in Pederson’s scheme, who can conceivably fill in at all three offensive line positions. Either situation seems like a good call to me.

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