Philadelphia Eagles: Derek Barnett just made himself a lot of money today

While the Philadelphia Eagles remain entrenched in their salary cap disaster, the rest of the NFL got to work spending money on the first official day of free agency. The New England Patriots highlighted the afternoon of spending, dropping a total of $150+ million on a slew of different players – including the likes of former Eagles Nelson Agholor and Jalen Mills.

While Howie Roseman and the Eagles weren’t able to hand out any contracts today, there were still some trickle down effects of the rest of the league’s spending that hurt them.

EDGE contracts were flying off the board, with huge money being paid out to a plethora of different pass-rushers. Names like Yannick Ngakoue, Carl Lawson, Trey Hendrickson, Romeo Okwara, Deatrich Wise, Shaq Barrett, Bud Dupree, Leonard Floyd, Markus Golden, and Samson Ebukam all got fairly large deals on the open market.

While the Eagles don’t have any major defensive end free agents at the moment, the pricey nature of all these contracts could end up making its way into any potential contract negotiations with the likes of Derek Barnett:

While Barnett is currently contracted through the 2021 season on a fifth-year option worth $10 million, the Philadelphia Eagles would ideally like to work out an extension of sorts to lower his immediate cap number. The team is still in negative cap space at the moment – freeing up money is their top priority.

During the regular season, it seemed likely that Barnett would agree to a “team friendly” deal of sorts if it meant gaining more longterm security. However, after seeing how this year’s EDGE market has shaped up thus far, one has to wonder if the former first-round pick feels the same way.

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Barnett only has 19.5 career sacks since being drafted, and he’s battled with injuries on a pretty routine basis. However, someone like Romeo Okwara just got $39 million over three years with Detroit, and he only has 20 sacks in just as many years.

Not only is $13 million more than what Barnett is currently being paid, but it’s also likely far more money than what the Philadelphia Eagles would feel comfortable committing to Barnett down the road. The team already has a goofy amount of money invested into Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave, and they just handed Brandon Graham another contract extension.

There’s only so much money the team can throw at the defensive line, especially when you consider the fact that the Eagles pricey D-Line hasn’t yielded good results post-2017.

Philadelphia Eagles have to make decision on Derek Barnett soon.

From my perspective, the Eagles only have two serious options when it comes to Barnett’s future at the moment. They can a) hand him a longterm deal comparable to the ones we saw today and backload the heck out of it, or they can b) start poking around for trade opportunities.

Teams reportedly came calling for Barnett around last year’s deadline, but Howie Roseman opted against the idea. Considering how the market for pass-rushers has developed since then, the controversial GM figure might be second guessing that decision.

The Eagles could technically just keep Barnett on his $10 million salary, riding him out as a starter for one final season before allowing him to test free agency, but that’s somewhat of a “lose-lose” situation for the Eagles. They’d get no immediate cap relief via a restructured extension, and they’d ultimately only receive a compensatory pick for Barnett later down the road.

The Philadelphia Eagles still have a ton of things to work through over the coming hours when it comes to getting their books back in order, but Barnett’s looming departure hangs above it all. Figuring things out before another massive EDGE contract gets handed out would be wise.