Philadelphia Eagles: Howie Roseman can’t sign his dream player, Patrick Peterson
Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman loves Patrick Peterson.
He presumably coveted the cover corner coming out of LSU, enough that the exec had a deal in place (per Joe Banner) to flip Kevin Kolb to the Arizona Cardinals for the fifth overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft – the pick used to draft Peterson – that was unfortunately nixed by the lockout and reportedly had an interest in trading for him again in 2019 along with Darius Slay and Chris Harris.
Could you even imagine how much better the 2011 Eagles would have been with Peterson lined up across from Nnamdi Asomugha as opposed to Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie? Pat Pet was an All-Pro as a rookie and recorded the best AV (20) of his entire career that year.
*sigh* why can’t the Eagles ever have nice things?
But hey, fear not, after a decade in the desert, Patrick Peterson and the Arizona Cardinals are reportedly set to part ways, according to FanSided’s own Matt Verderame. Surely Roseman and the Eagles will be able to right that generational wrong and finally get number 21 in a midnight green jersey, right…?
The Philadelphia Eagles are no longer a viable landing spot for Patrick Peterson.
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If Patrick Peterson had mutually agreed to part ways with the Arizona Cardinals the day after the Super Bowl in 2018 instead of 2021, there isn’t a person on this earth who could convince me he wouldn’t have been a member of the Philadelphia Eagles on the first day of the NFL calendar year.
Then the Eagles were flying high. They’d just won a Super Bowl, were the bell of the NFL’s ball, and had enough cap space to secure his services regardless of how they felt about incumbent cornerbacks Ronald Darby and Jalen Mills. Regardless of which other teams tried to woo Peterson with a more lucrative deal, a more temperate climate, or a chance to secure a ring to cap off his Hall of Fame credentials, something tells me Howie Roseman would have found a way to get a deal done and finally right the wrong the NFL put him in in 2011.
In 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles are a very different team.
With millions and millions of dollars in negative cap space on the books and only so many ways to get things right without totally blowing everything up, the Eagles aren’t going to be big players in free agency this spring. Sure, they may be able to land a few low-level players for their trouble or even scrounge up enough capital to land a single mid-level player on a long-term deal like ex-Colts middle linebacker Anthony Walker, but that’ll be it.
Even if Peterson only opts to sign a one-year, prove-it deal with a contender to avoid getting locked into a scheme he doesn’t like long-term, it’s hard to imagine it’ll be the Eagles offering him the kind of money needed to get that done – especially when much less effective players like Xavier Rhodes got one-year deals worth $5 million after much less effective seasons/careers.
If the Eagles offered Peterson something wild, like $13 million-plus incentives, maybe they’d be able to get him under contract, but they can’t really afford to do so, and something tells me he might still say no if such an offer was on the table.
Why? Because Peterson has already made a ton of money.
Since being drafted by the Cardinals in 2011, Peterson has earned $94.7 million split over a pair of contracts, with a chance to all but surely join the $100 million club in his 11th year. With only so many more years left to play at a high-level in his NFL career, why waste another one on a team with no guarantee to make the playoffs? Peterson has only appeared in three playoff games during his professional career; something tells me he’d like to multiply that number a few times over before he hangs up his cleats once and for all.
Again, could that happen as a member of the Eagles? Sure, but it seems unlikely.
Even if Peterson is a solid scheme fit in new defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon’s system – which he is, by the way (more on that here) – why would he opt to come here when the last two Super Bowl Champions run similarly compatible schemes and present a much clearer path to a championship ring at a market-level price?
Assuming Peterson isn’t best friends with Slay or hasn’t always dreamed of being an Eagles since his childhood in Pompano Beach, Florida, I can’t really think of a viable answer.
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No, the best chance the Philadelphia Eagles had to get Patrick Peterson under contract has unfortunately passed, and Howie Roseman will, unfortunately, have to sit back and watch as one of his white whales signs elsewhere to finish out his prime. Is it a shame? Most definitely. A pairing of Peterson and Darius Slay would be beyond elite and would give the Birds their best pairing since Asante Samuel and Sheldon Brown, but at this point, they have a better chance of landing Asante Samuel Jr. in the draft than securing another ex-All-Pro over 30 looking to finish out their career on a contender. That isn’t Philly… at least not right now.