Philadelphia Eagles: Jalen Ramsey is worth the asking price

While two first-round picks are a lot to trade for any player regardless of position, the Philadelphia Eagles shouldn’t hesitate to make a move for Jalen Ramsey.

Is there anything more fun than a hypothetical trade?

While watching a team play week in and week out is clearly a whole bushel of fun – you are reading this because of that fandom after all – sometimes its fun to put on the hypothetical GM’s hat and try to move some pieces around to make a playoff-bound team like the Philadelphia Eagles a legitimate Super Bowl favorite.

That fantasy football has kept countless companies, from Draft Kings to EA Sports gainfully in the red for years – decades even.

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But sometimes, a player requests a trade that is just too perfect not to fantasize about – the kind of trade that can legitimately turn a Super Bowl’s tides.

In 2004, the Eagles made a move to acquire Terrell Owens, and it vaulted a consistently competent, yet severely flawed team into their first Super Bowl appearance of the 21st Century. The same, albeit to a lesser degree, could be said about the addition of Jay Ajayi in 2017, as for a fourth-round pick, the Eagles clinched a Lombardi Trophy off the strength of their bolstered running game.

But none, and I mean none of these additions would even hold a candle to a potential move to acquire Jalen Ramsey.

Now that’s a pretty bold statement since Owens is a legitimate Hall of Famer, but he came to the City of Brotherly Love at 31, and only appeared in 22 games before his bizarre, driveway exit from the team.

Much like Owens, Ramsey is the top player in the league right now at his position, but at basically 25, he’s just entering his NFL prime.

And if Ramsey isn’t even in his prime yet, boy, could he be an all-timer.

The best player in the 2016 NFL Draft (sorry Carson Wentz), Ramsey dropped to fifth overall due in large part to a rash run on quarterbacks – and Ezekiel Elliott – but despite some now-crazy questions about whether he should player cornerback or safety at the NFL level, he almost immediately took the league by storm.

With two Pro Bowl appearances and an All-Pro honor before his 25th birthday, the Florida State product essentially became the modern prototype for a lockdown man press cornerback – and through it all, Ramsey thrived under pressure. Measuring in at 6-foot-1, 208 pounds with legitimate 4.41 speed and a crazy 135 broad jump, Ramsey can conceivably thrive in any NFL scheme and remain dominant.

Do you want a player who can shadow and shut down opposing team’s top receivers, both on the outside and in the slot? Ramsey can do that. Do you want an anticipatory corner who can read an opposing cornerbacks eyes and break up passes? Ramsey has 45 in 50 games including nine interceptions.

But is adding a player on the cusp of a record-breaking contract extension worth two first-round picks? Duh.

There are very, very few cornerbacks in the league who can shut down an entire side of the field, and free up defensive coordinators to get more creative with their scheming. While one would obviously like for Ramsey not to get into fights with coaches on the sidelines (for obvious reasons), his passion, ferocity, and swagger is precisely what Jim Schwartz looks for in a cornerback- a Philly player through and through.

Granted, giving up 10 years of cost-controlled first-round contract years for any one player is a tough pill to swallow, but it’s almost impossible to imagine the Eagles finding a player of Ramsey’s caliber with a pick in the late 20s, let alone two.

Ramsey is better than Ronald Darby. Ramsey is better than Avonte Maddox. Ramsey is better than Sidney Jones, Rasul Douglas, and Jalen Mills combined. While having optionality is nice, Ramsey plus two is far and away better than five low-level starters still cycling in and out of a platoon rotation.

If a trade for Ramsey works as many assume – with parades down Broad Street – those first-round picks become nothing more than collateral damage in a grander scheme.

That’s worth it.

Next. It’s Taco (Charlton) time in South Philly. dark

Ultimately, whether Jalen Ramsey ends up in a midnight green jersey before a Week 4 is wholly out of our control, but if Howie Roseman is serious about making the Philadelphia Eagles better in 2019 and beyond, this is one hypothetical trade that almost makes too much sense – but hey, what do I know?

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