Philadelphia Eagles: John Ross III is a “Jaccpot” buy-low free agent

In the NFL, speed kills.

If you don’t have enough speed, you’re surely looking for more, and even if you’ve got a roster filled to the top with athletic track stars capable of running a 40 in the 90th-plus percentile, well, you’re probably still looking for speed across the board, as it’s just too valuable.

Did the Kansas City Cheifs need to draft Mecole Hardman when they already had Tyreek Hill? No, probably not, but you can’t argue that having two players with sub. 4.35 40s certainly made Patrick Mahomes’ life a whole lot easier over the past few seasons.

With that in mind, the Philadelphia Eagles have a pretty significant hole in their offensive identity that needs to be filled now that DeSean Jackson is officially off the books and out of mind.

Could that role be filled by 2020 first-round pick Jalen Reagor? Or how about with a player like Jaylen Waddle in the first round of the 2021 NFL Draft? Either is possible, but what if there’s a cheaper option with upside who surely won’t cost the team more than a one-year, $1-ish million contract?

John Ross III, come on down.

Can the Philadelphia Eagles unlock John Ross III’s limitless deep threat potential?

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Going into the 2017 NFL season, the Philadelphia Eagles were looking for speed at the wide receiver position.

With a rocket-armed quarterback and arguably the worst receiving corps in the league, Howie Roseman made it his mission to stockpile his offense with pass catchers of all shapes and sizes to fully implement Doug Pederson’s hybrid West Coast offense.

First and foremost, the newly-re-empowered general manager invested $29 million in free agency on a pair of veteran wide receivers by the name of Torrey Smith and Alshon Jeffery, who were expected to play the X and Z receiver spots opposite 2015 first-round pick Nelson Agholor in the slot.

If that was all the Eagles would go on to do to address their receiving needs, it probably would have been enough to, I don’t know, maybe win a Super Bowl, but that wasn’t all Roseman had up his sleeves. No, the crafty GM wanted to fully fix the flaws of the Chip Kelly-era and acquire himself a young speedster to play next to Carson Wentz for the foreseeable future.

No, Roseman and his staff took a particular interest in a speedy wide receiver by the name of John Ross III out of Washington, who took the football world by storm by running a 4.22 40 at the 2017 NFL Combine. The Eagles met with Ross five times in total in the lead-up to the draft, more than any other prospect, and looked primed to pick him with the 14th overall pick should he fall that far come April.

Unfortunately, that just wasn’t meant to be.

In a crushing blow that I know I took personally, the Cincinnati Bengals opted to draft JR3 ninth overall despite having needs at basically every position across the board, and the Eagles had to pivot to Derek Barnett, a player they met with twice and has admittedly worked out fairly well even if he could be traded this offseason.

The Eagles still left the draft with a pair of speedy deep threats in Mack Hollins and Shelton Gibson, but neither option turned out to be particularly impactful offensive weapons, which, ironically enough, could also be said about Ross in the home of Skyline Chili, as he only amassed 733 yards and 10 touchdowns in 27 games.

Ross fell so far out of favor with head coach Zac Taylor that he only appeared in three games for the resurging Bengals in 2020 and was reportedly available at the trade deadline for any team interested in his services.

While that obviously didn’t happen, it’s pretty safe to say Ross won’t be back in an orange and black uniform anytime soon, that is, of course, unless he takes his services to the Cleveland Browns or opts to transition to the game of hockey and join the Philadelphia Flyers.

But between you and me, I imagine if Ross is going to join any team in the City of Brotherly Love, it’ll probably be the Eagles.

With very little money to spend in free agency, if any at all, and an underwhelming outlook on the forthcoming season that may turn away cheaper free agents looking to win now, the Eagles are going to have to get creative when it comes to bolstering their roster on the open market. They likely won’t be players for a Pro Bowl-level slot receiver like JuJu Smith-Schuster or have the money to win a bidding war for do-it-all offensive weapon Curtis Samuel should he leave Carolina.

But a player like Ross, who very well may not even make it out of training camp, let alone become a full-time starter? Yeah, they could probably secure his services if there is still mutual interest between the two parties.

In Ross, the Eagles would be betting on potential and natural gifts. While many players can track a deep ball in the air and place themselves in the right position to haul in a pass, there literally isn’t a cornerback in the NFL who can best Ross’s 4.22 speed in a pure footrace off the line because there isn’t another player in the NFL with his exact speed profile.

If the dynamic duo of Nick Sirianni and wide receivers coach Aaron Moorehead can teach Ross how to beat press coverage and put more of that speed on tape, it’d be like landing a free 25-year-old former first-round pick for pennies on the dollar.

And for what it’s worth, in college, Ross wasn’t just a one-dimensional player. No, at Washington, Ross was deployed on the outside on either side of the formation and even took snaps from the slot from time to time. He was a weapon in the screen game, ran more than just your typical go-slant-cross route tree, and even amassed four touchdowns and 2,069 yards as the Huskies’ number one kick returner.

Even if the Eagle were to just use Ross as a return man, a la how the Ravens have used DeAnthony Thomas in recent years, the 25-year-old Long Beach native would surely be an upgrade over the not-so-dynamic duo of Boston Scott and Jason Huntley, who filled the role almost out of necessity in 2020.

If the Eagles were willing to claim Huntley’s contract off of the waiver wire and pay him an average salary of $896,327, surely they’d be willing to pay something similar to Ross with the knowledge that he could also provide an offensive spark from time to time.

Again, the Eagles aren’t really in a position to secure sure things in free agency, especially if they are trying to do so on the cheap. If they still like Ross as a prospect and think he can contribute in the return game no matter what, that alone should be enough to make signing him a worthy endeavor, even if he never develops into the DeSean Jackson-esque playmaker many expected coming out of college.

No matter how you slice it, the Philadelphia Eagles’ wide receiving corps is very much a work in progress. While they have a trio of receivers who will surely receive playing time in 2021 in Jalen Reagor, Travis Fulgham, and Greg Ward, in addition to a pair of speedy prospects in John Hightower and Quez Watkins who could conceivably work their way into the rotation, none of those players have the pure, natural, gosh-given speed that John Ross possesses, and unfortunately, that can’t be coached up. Even though things didn’t work out for the former ninth overall pick in Cincinnati, why not see if a change of scenery on a young and hungry team could be just what the doctor ordered to unlock his college potential? And come on, wouldn’t it be nice for the Eagles to land a diamond in the rough for a change?