I’m sure you know by now that the Eagles restructured the contract of Fletcher Cox to be able to free up about $6 million dollars this year under the salary cap and free up more than $11 million next year under the salary cap. Now why would they do that?
Along with the information about freeing up the money — information was also leaked out about the Eagles not being interested in Pittsburgh Steeler superstar running back Le’Veon Bell, who has been holding out all season. I think the two bits of information go together. Clearly what the Eagles are doing is making sure everybody knows that they are interested LeSean McCoy and not interested in Le’Veon Bell. I think it’s a head fake or a double move.
They’ve got a game tomorrow night against the Giants and they will go into that game with Corey Clement, Wendell Smallwood and Josh Adams as their running backs. Of course Jay Ajayi is done for the season and there’s no telling when Darren Sproles is going to be ready. They are in desperate need of a running back and they will have more than a week to work out a deal to trade for either Le’Veon Bell or LeSean McCoy.
“I think the Eagles are going to try to put together a deal to acquire Bell, but if that doesn’t work out then they will settle for McCoy.”
The big numbers to look at when talking about these two backs are the ages of the two players. Bell is 26 years old and McCoy is 30. That’s all you need to know. It’s only four years, but those are four huge years when you’re talking about a NFL running back. The Eagles would like to have a younger back — they don’t want to acquire a back who is thirty years old. If you want to know why, just take a look at Sproles.
Bell is a special talent, but he has turned off quite a few teams because information has circulated about him having a plan to sign with a team, then work out a strategy to go through the motions of playing and make sure he doesn’t get hurt until he reaches free agency. If the Eagles were to fill up his contract this year with incentives that were tied to pay next year, it would motivate Le’Veon to play great football this year. So the Eagles have to work out a deal with the Steelers then work out a contract with Le’Veon that’s stuffed full of incentives that require him to play great football right now.
I think the Eagles are going to try to put together a deal to acquire Bell, but if that doesn’t work out then they will settle for McCoy. Either way I think they’re going to do a deal for a running back before next Wednesday or should I say before they start preparing to play the Carolina Panthers.
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