Philadelphia Eagles rumors: Xavien Howard trade not a realistic scenario

The Philadelphia Eagles have a glaring hole at cornerback, they have a ton of future draft capital, and All-Pro CB Xavien Howard is reportedly being made available for trade. Feels like the type of situation Howie Roseman and company should pounce on, right?

Not so fast.

While adding Xavien Howard to the roster – to play alongside the likes of Darius Slay – would instantly give the Philadelphia Eagles one of the better secondaries in football, such a trade simply isn’t realistic from Philly’s point of view. Due to a plethora of bad contracts and poor financial moves, Howie Roseman found himself in a position this past offseason where he could barely pay the team’s rookie draft class.

Even the few impact free agents that he did add (Anthony Harris, Eric Wilson), had to be acquired on one-year deals which were seriously backloaded with “dummy years” – further hurting the organization’s financial situation later down the road.

Not only does Howard carry with him a $13.5 million cap hit that Roseman can’t fit under the current salary cap, but the 2x Pro Bowler is looking for a big-time payday sometime in the near future. The big reason he reportedly wants out of Miami is due to his current salary, which is looking rather light compared to the money that Jalen Ramsey was just recently paid by the Los Angeles Rams. Howard is coming off a Defensive Player of the Year caliber season where he recorded a league-high 10 interceptions and a league-high 20 passes defensed.

If there was ever a time for Howard to cash out – it would be now

While the Philadelphia Eagles undoubtedly need to upgrade their CB room, they shouldn’t have any serious interest in Xavien Howard.

So not only do the Eagles not have the financial capacity to fit Howard into their current budget, but they don’t really have the longterm flexibility to hand him a record-shattering contract either. If the Philadelphia Eagles did have that type of money lying around, the general assumption is that they would have signed free agent CB Steven Nelson by now.

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Additionally, the Eagles are not in a position where they should be trading away future draft capital for aging cornerbacks. The move they made for Slay prior to the 2020 season is already looking less-than-favorable, and Roseman is likely looking to retain all his picks until a conclusion is made in regards to Deshaun Watson’s NFL future.

The Eagles were once again linked to the Texans quarterback this past week, with Adam Schefter making the claim that Philly is the best-equipped team to acquire Watson, should he be cleared of all legal wrongdoing.

Pairing up Slay and Howard for a season or two would definitely be a fun combination, but it’s really not something to put too much thought into. I doubt the Eagles have even called Miami about Howard’s availability. If they did, it was just for the sake of doing their “due diligence,” as opposed to offering some sort of trade package