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Tim McManus
PHILADELPHIA — On Sunday night in New Orleans, Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman was a man fully immersed in the moment.
His arms raised and a cigar tucked between his index and middle finger on his right hand, Roseman — wearing a blue dress shirt and navy sports coat — danced his way into the middle of the locker room. Players formed a circle around him and let out a “Hey!” every time the beat reset and their GM shifted in rhythm.
Soon, he was fitted with a silver chain with a large, blinged-out replica of an Eagles helmet dangling from it. The rest of the evening he circled the room — the normal look of concentration washed away from his face — looking to squeeze every last bit of joy out of the Eagles’ Super Bowl win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the second Lombardi Trophy he has delivered to a city that previously had none.
It was a rare instance where the 49-year-old architect could focus on the here and now. The day before the team left Philadelphia for New Orleans, Roseman offered a peek inside a mind that has no choice but to live nearly constantly in the future.
“It’s all I think about all the time,” Roseman told a group of reporters inside the auditorium at the team’s practice facility. “I’m thinking about what we’re going to do next year in August. I’m thinking about what 2026 looks like and 2027 looks like every night when I go to bed. It doesn’t really change.
“I think that’s my role, to enjoy the team on Sundays but the rest of the week I’m thinking about the next year. It’s very opposite to what goes on during the week. Everyone is focused on how we’re beating that opponent and I want to beat that opponent, too, but I’m thinking about the players in the draft, the players in free agency, how we’re allocating our resources, how we’re ensuring we’re lined up for a staff member who leaves. I think that’s the way our job is kind of set up.”
The obstacles in front of the Eagles this offseason, then, are not just suddenly coming into focus.
Most pressing, they’ll have to account for the loss of offensive coordinator Kellen Moore, who was recently hired as head coach of the New Orleans Saints. Quarterback Jalen Hurts will be working with his fifth different playcaller since entering the league in 2020. The Eagles will have to decide whether to lean on the side of familiarity and promote passing game coordinator/associate head coach Kevin Patullo or look for an outside candidate with more playcalling experience.
The Eagles have a handful of key contributors on expiring contracts, including All-Pro linebacker Zack Baun, defensive linemen Milton Williams and Josh Sweat, and right guard Mekhi Becton. They’ll also have to decide whether to hold onto 34-year-old corner Darius Slay, who carries a 2025 cap hit of around $14 million.
Departures are inevitable, especially after a title run with others around the league trying to capture a slice of that success. But overall, Philadelphia is set up well for 2025 and beyond.
Start with the fact that core veteran players such as Hurts, running back Saquon Barkley, receivers A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and offensive linemen Lane Johnson, Jordan Mailata and Landon Dickerson are all under contract through at least 2026. By securing many of them to long-term contracts before their previous ones came close to expiring, Roseman was able to keep the price tags from getting out of control. And thanks to CEO Jeffrey Lurie’s willingness to put up cash for a number of these deals, in the form of signing bonuses, the cap hits are spread out more evenly over the life of the contract, allowing for more cap flexibility.
As it stands, the Eagles are about $25 million under the cap for ’25, which is around the middle of the pack in the NFL.
One major boon for the ’24 Birds was that they boasted the No. 1 defense despite committing the fourth-lowest amount of cap dollars to that side of the ball. Credit defensive coordinator Vic Fangio for working his magic. But the other component is successful drafting. Since ’22, the Eagles have added the likes of Jalen Carter, Nolan Smith Jr., Nakobe Dean, Quinyon Mitchell and Super Bowl LIX star Cooper DeJean via the draft.
Seven of the starters on defense were 25 years old or younger, and there are other promising first- and second-year players such as Jalyx Hunt, Jeremiah Trotter Jr., Sydney Brown, Kelee Ringo and Moro Ojomo who can help fill the void of some of the pending free agents.
“As the cap gets tighter, as all our expensive players start becoming expensive, you have to go with young players,” Roseman said.
Similarly on offense, the combination of having an elite offensive line coach in Jeff Stoutland paired with the drafting of guys such as Tyler Steen makes the potential loss of Becton more manageable.
With some potential replacements in the pipeline, a decent amount of cap space and nine draft picks scheduled for April, Philadelphia is well positioned to maintain a top-tier roster.
A primary reason the Eagles were able to build a sustainable model — they’ve averaged over 10 wins per season since 2017 and have appeared in three Super Bowls during that time, winning two of them — is that Lurie and Roseman take the long view.
“It’s a huge part of my personality, it’s a huge part of Howie’s personality,” Lurie said during Super Bowl opening night. “It’s probably how we’ve worked together for the last 20-something years. Even this week, we’re here, we’ve got some thoughts on 2025, ’26, ’27, what we’re going to do. It’s a constant obsession, and I love that about Howie. It represents everything I believe in, it represents everything Howie believes in. You’re never satisfied and you shouldn’t be.”
Roseman has as much job security as any GM in the NFL, which is a key part of the equation as many of his peers are forced into a this-year-or-bust mindset.
“I’m not concerned in my job security, not because I’m on scholarship, just because I think if you start worrying about that and not worry about what’s best for the team,” Roseman said, “it changes your focus.”