Philadelphia Eagles: Why didn’t Howie Roseman trade for Desmond King?

The Philadelphia Eagles dropped the ball not acquiring Desmond King.

I was all set to publish a trade rumor article connecting Desmond King to the Philadelphia Eagles when I got a notification on my phone.

“The Chargers are trading CB/ST Desmond King to the Titans per @AdamSchefter”

Like okay, that checks out. The Titans are 6-1 coming off a year in which they bullied their way to the AFC Championship game. They have a defense-minded coach who loves versatile DBs like King, and they likely splashed big to acquire someone of King’s stature. At first glance, I was thinking something like a third-round pick and some change?

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Then I got the second notification:

“Chargers traded CB Desmond King to the Titans for a 6th-round pick”

A sixth-rounder? For Desmond King? The same Desmond King that has 4 career interceptions, 17 passes defensed, 2 forced fumbles, 7.5 sacks, 213 tackles, and 4 touchdowns? Am I missing something here?

Now for what it’s worth, King is a free agent at the end of the year, and he’ll likely hit the open market wth a handful of suitors. However, even just eight games of King feels like a bargain for such a late-round draft pick. There’s always the possible he enjoys his time in Tennessee and re-signs, and even if he doesn’t, the Titans would likely get a fairly decent compensatory pick in 2022.

Needless to say, on paper this looks like a really, really good trade for the Tennessee Titans. They get a legitimate “Swiss Army Knife” weapon to add into their secondary, and they did it for a ridiculously low price. King is only owed $1.1 million for the remainder of the 2020 season as well, so the cap implications are minimal. The definition of a fantastic deadline day acquisition.

This then begs the question: what in the world is Howie Roseman looking for?

Heading into this year’s trade deadline it had somewhat become common knowledge that the Philadelphia Eagles wouldn’t be big time “buyers”. The team had performed far below expectations through the first half of the season, they are entering salary cap hell in 2021, and the team seriously lacks exciting young talent. If anything, Roseman and the Eagles were very much on the “sellers” side of things.

However, Howie Roseman has never been one to shy away from good value trades. When it was announced that Desmond King was being made available, people (myself included) quickly pinned the Eagles as a potential landing spot. Philadelphia desperately needs help at both safety and corner (King plays both!), and the former All-Pro defensive back was still on his rookie contract, meaning that he would have minimal financial implications moving forward.

Even giving up multiple Day 3 picks for King would have felt like an incredible value move from the Eagles perspective.

Howie Roseman shot away a fourth-round pick for backup DE Genard Avery last year, but I guess hypothetically trading a fifth for a former All-Pro DB was just too much? Obviously the rest of the league didn’t think too highly of King either, but for a team in the position that the Eagles are in, it’s hard not to feel like Roseman dropped the ball not being involved on this specific deal.

Again, the absolute worst case scenario would be King playing eight games for Philly and then leaving in the offseason, rewarding Roseman with a comp pick in 2022. Just eight games of decent production would already trump anything that Avery has done during his time as an Eagle.