Philadelphia Eagles: Stephon Gilmore (probably) isn’t coming to Philly

Stephon Gilmore should have joined the Philadelphia Eagles in 2017. I know, I know, that feels like a lifetime ago, but hear me out on this one; it’s good.

After an encouraging first season under Doug Pederson, Howie Roseman and company were looking to take advantage of having a good quarterback on a rookie-scale deal and opted to fill out their roster with heavy hitters for a few key positions across the board. He signed Alshon Jeffery, swapped third-round picks to secure the rights to Timmy Jernigan, and traded then-top wide receiver Jordan Matthews and a third-round pick to the Buffalo Bills for Ronald Darby, a range-y man-press cornerback with fantastic speed.

While saying goodbye to J Matt certainly stung, especially when one considers how the season ended, the addition of Darby proved incredibly valuable, as he formed a three-man machine alongside Jalen Mills and Patrick Robinson that proved good enough to, ya know, win the Super Bowl.

But remember, Darby wasn’t the only cornerback with experience playing under Jim Schwartz back in Buffalo. No, the crown jewel of Schwartz’s single-season in the “chicken wing city” was Stephon Gilmore, a player who was a free agent in the spring of 2017 and ultimately signed a five-year, $65 million contract with the New England Patriots who, coincidently, faced off against the Eagles in that season’s Super Bowl.

Despite being four years older at the time, Gilmore’s career has proven far more productive than Darby’s in the, goodness, almost five years since the 2017 season, with four Pro Bowls, two All-Pros, and a Defensive Player of the Year win on his belt versus, well, a Super Bowl championship for his former teammate, who is currently signed to a three-year, $30 million deal in Denver. Had Roseman signed Gilmore to some sore of deal, maybe Matthews’ career wouldn’t have fallen off a cliff in Buffalo, maybe the Eagles win the Super Bowl even more handily, and maybe Darius Slay would be… still in Philly because that decision was 100 percent the right call.

Fortunately, the Philadelphia Eagles have an opportunity to right one of their few wrongs from the 2017 calendar year, as Stephon Gilmore is once again a free agent and on the lookout for his third team in as many seasons. The bad news? It’s hard to imagine Howie Roseman surrendering the sort of scratch needed to get a deal done, especially when a wealth of Ronald Darby-type players should be available at pick 15 in the 2022 NFL Draft.

The Philadelphia Eagles will likely address their cornerback needs in the draft.

In 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles entered the draft with a big need at wide receiver.

With not much money to spend in free agency – see -$30 million in cap space – and the expectation that the team’s first season under Nick Sirianni would be somewhat of a gap year, Howie Roseman and company opted against adding any veterans in free agency, even a stop-gap like Zach Pascal, in favor of targeting the position in the draft. Would they somehow luck into Jamar Chase, Kyle Pitts, or Jaylen Widdle? Or would the draft break in some other teams’ favor and leave Philly with a Day 2 option playing opposite Jalen Reagor, Quez Watkins, and JJ Arcega-Whiteside?

Fortunately, even after trading back from six to 12, the Eagles only had to make a minor move, moving up two spots for the price of a third-round pick to secure the rights to DeVanta Smith, who would go on to set a franchise record for rookie receiving yards.

Now obviously, if Smith was gone and the Eagles instead had to settle for a player like Kadarius Toney or had to turn to a Day 2 option like Rondale Moore, or Amon-Ra St. Brown, this could have turned out a whole lot differently than it did, but the front office ran their mocks, read the tea leaves, and determined that a player they liked would more likely than not still be on the board at 12, even if that only sort of proved to be true.

In 2022, Roseman appears to have a similar mindset, only this time, at the cornerback position.

… okay, technically Roseman had that mindset in 2021 too, as the team was forced to pay up for Steven Nelson to the tune of a one-year, $3.05 million contract after Zech McPhearson proved ill-equipped to start opposite Darius Slay, but in 2022, the Eagles have three first-round picks in the top-19 and are looking at four different corners with a top-20 grade according to NFL.com. If things shape out in Philly’s favor, they could have their pick of players like Trent McDuffie, Derek Stingley Jr., Andrew Booth, or Kaiir Elam with one of those three picks, or could even package two of them together for the best cornerback on the board, Sauce Gardner.

If things work out in Philly’s favor, then great, they have three quality cornerbacks to roll with this season and hopefully luck into a quality safety to pair up with Anthony Harris moving forward. If not, well, there will surely be some cornerback available once the draft ends, be that via trade – which is how the Carolina Panthers landed Stephon Gilmore – or a free agent like Joe Haden, Jimmy Smith, or even Steven Nelson like they did last summer. Either way, giving Gilmore, a Pro Bowler in 2021, the sort of contract he’d surely want to play for a non-bona fide contender in 2022 is probably not in the Eagles budget, as Gabrielle Gilmore basically inferred on Twitter.

Could Stephon Gilmore ultimately end up in the City of Brotherly Love this fall? Sure, there’s a chance his market is bizarrely slight, and he ends up agreeing to a one-year contract for the 2022 NFL season. If that happens, Howie Roseman should pony up and pay the man for a season of action regardless of how the draft shakes out. But if he wants a longer contract, the sort of deal that may not be available to him a few seasons down the line when he’s even closer to 35 than 31, it probably won’t come from the Philadelphia Eagles, as they’re focused on the future, not on winning now.