Howie Roseman Gets Creative in Finding Money to Pay Jalen Hurts

The Eagles GM said he wants to keep the QB around for a long time, and now, after re-doing Lane Johnson's contract and finding inexpensive free agents, he has money to do it.

The Eagles’ wallet is fat again thanks to right tackle Lane Johnson and the team agreeing to a contract extension that saved the organization nearly $10 million on the salary cap.

Per Overthecap.com, the Eagles were nearly $13M beneath the salary cap of $224M, but that number will grow to about $22M with the new deal for Johnson.

Now, perhaps the Eagles and Jalen Hurts finally hammer out that widely expected contract extension.

The date of June 1 is an important one to watch when it comes to NFL bookkeeping with the other demarcation line being late July before the start of training camp. Remember Carson Wentz's extension back in 2019 - then the largest in franchise history - came on June 6.

Not only did GM Howie Roseman save money with the Johnson negotiation, but he also has done solid work in retooling positions where contributors left in free agency and doing so with some inexpensive deals.

Safeties Terrell Edmunds and Justin Evans got one-year deals on the cheap; Edmunds at $2M with another $650K in incentives and Evans at $1.59M with another $1.25M in incentives.

Running back Rashaad Penny came on a one-year deal as well, at $1.35M with $750K in incentives.

Now, whether or not those three pay dividends and will be better than previous safeties CJ Gardner-Johnson and Marcus Epps and RB Miles Sanders remains to be seen.

Roseman, though, had to get creative to find money to pay Hurts.

The Eagles’ stance on commenting on contract negotiations is they simply don’t do it, but Roseman made it very clear after the season ended that the organization wants to keep their quarterback around for a very long time.

“If you don't have a quarterback, you're searching for one, and you can't win in this league without a great quarterback who plays at a high level,” said Roseman. “We saw how Jalen played in the Super Bowl, on the biggest stage, and that's exciting for our team, for our fans, for all of us.”

The cost of keeping Hurts won’t be cheap, and the organization understands that. This isn’t their first time down the franchise-quarterback road.

The Eagles don’t need to have to necessarily have money tucked away again after the Johnson deal since Hurts will play on the final year of his rookie contract for $4.2M.

They can, however, use some of that money to tack onto Hurts’ salary cap charge this season. Currently, that number is at $4.7M.

Adding money to that would help soften the salary cap charge over future seasons, if ever so slightly, depending, of course, on what the extension looks like financially.

The Eagles thought they had their QB of the future back in 2016 when they moved up the draft board in two separate deals for the right to pick Wentz second overall.

Injuries and Wentz’s insecurities derailed that thinking.

They drafted Hurts in the second round of 2020 and hope they got it right this time.

Roseman and the team thinks they have. More importantly, the man who writes the checks, owner Jeffrey Lurie, does, too.

“It starts with his parents,” said Lurie in the locker room following the Eagles’ rout of the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC Championship Game. “It’s a big part of analyzing a quarterback you’re going to take in the draft. He doesn’t go off to the side. You want somebody who is incredibly mature, stable, able to withstand the ups and downs of the NFL.

“Every young quarterback struggles. How are they going to emerge after that struggling period? So, a lot goes into it. Just an incredibly mature young man, quietly confident, and everyone wants to follow his lead because he’s deserving of it.”

Ed Kracz is the publisher of SI.com’s Fan Nation Eagles Today and co-host of the Eagles Unfiltered Podcast. Check out the latest Eagles news at www.SI.com/NFL/Eagles or www.eaglestoday.com and please follow him on Twitter: @kracze.