No, the Philadelphia Eagles should not try to trade for Deshaun Watson

Stop with the Philadelphia Eagles/Deshaun Watson trade rumors.

The Philadelphia Eagles have some major question marks at quarterback moving forward. Carson Wentz is reportedly still weighing whether he wants to remain in Philly moving forward, and Jalen Hurts had some pretty serious struggles against Dallas and Washington in Weeks 16 and 17. Neither QB is guaranteed to be the team’s starter come 2021 Week 1, which means the room for speculation around adding a new arm to Howie Roseman’s “QB factory” is prevalent.

Enter Deshaun Watson. A top 5-10 passer in the league (depending on who you ask), Watson is reportedly very frustrated with the Houston Texans’ ownership due to how they’ve conducted business over the last year or so. Former HC/GM Bill O’Brien infamously shipped away DeAndre Hopkins for peanuts, and the team supposedly went and hired a new GM without talking to Watson about it beforehand, something they had promised to do.

While a blockbuster Deshaun Watson trade is incredibly unlikely to happen this offseason (and I mean incredibly unlikely), this hasn’t stopped people from drumming up all sorts of trade hypotheticals that involve the Philadelphia Eagles.

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This needs to stop.

For starters, the Eagles don’t have a feasible amount of assets to move at the moment. I’ve seen some trade scenarios project that Watson could be landed via two first-round picks and Carson Wentz – that’s simply not even close to what Watson would fetch on the open market. Deshaun is only 25 years old yet, and he’s coming off an absolutely sensational 2020 campaign.

Watson threw for a league-leading 4,832 yards, and his completion percentage ended at a career best 70.2%. The Texans win-loss record obviously didn’t end up in a good spot (4-12), but that was to no fault of Watson – he was awesome.

For someone of Watson’s age and caliber, you’re probably looking at 3-4 first-round picks, on top of maybe an exciting young player or two. The Eagles don’t have much in terms of rising stars, and their cap situation is so miserable that shooting away multiple first-round picks would only make things worse for them in the long run.

Also, the idea that the Texans would want Wentz and his soon-to-be-activated contract extension is being pulled completely out of left field. There’s no guarantee that Houston wants Carson, meaning Howie Roseman and company would have to facilitate a Wentz trade to another team on top of hypothetically acquiring Watson. It’s all just fairly ridiculous.

Lastly, while it’s fair to acknowledge that Watson would be a massive upgrade to the Philadelphia Eagles current QB situation, it’s also fair to acknowledge that the Eagles aren’t “a quarterback away” from being a good football team. According to Pro Football Focus, the Eagles offense was bad at literally everything this past season, with quarterback not even being their biggest weakness:

Deshaun Watson is very good at football, but even him playing at his absolute best for Houston resulted in the same amount of wins that the Eagles had in 2020 (4). Throwing him into an objectively worse offense wouldn’t really change anything longterm. Add on the fact that hypothetically landing Watson would cost the Eagles multiple high-value assets, and you’re looking at a roster destined to be bad for the next 4-5 years.

“#FreeWatson” would likely be trending all over Twitter after 1-2 seasons of him chucking up bombs to Greg Ward Jr. and JJ Arcega-Whiteside. Not ideal!