EAGLEMANIACAL.com

PICTURE if you will 2015. The Eagles have concluded 2014 without a Super Bowl win. Whether we finished 0-16 or 16-0, Chip Kelly will get a 3^rd year. There will be no new coach. The roster will have no reason to be torn up. Fans will expect a good showing in the upcoming 2015 season.

Enter 17 players out of 53. They and their 2015 (rounded down) salaries are:

                           (running total)

DJax- 12M            (12M)

McCoy- 11M        (23)

Peters- 10M         (33)

Willams- 8M         (41)

Mathis- 6M           (47)

DeMeco- 6M         (53)

Barwin- 6M           (59)

Kelce- 6M             (65)

Jenkins- 5M          (70)

Cooper- 5M          (75)

Lane- 5M              (80)

Herremans- 5       (85)

Celek- 4M             (89)

Casey- 4M            (93)

Cox- 3M                (96)

Sproles- 3M          (99)

Carroll- 2M         (101)

17 players, $101 million dollars.

Assuming a generous 10% cap jump to 146M in 2015, that only leaves 45M for the remaining 36 players (avg. 1.25M per player). This also assumes Trent Cole and his 11M salary are already gone. If he stays then its 18 players at 112M, leaving 34M for 35 players (971K per player)

If the cap stays in the vicinity of 133M like it is this year, with or without Cole, the Eagles cap management will be a nightmare. I didn’t even mention Jeremy Maclin, Bradley Fletcher, or Chris Polk , all of which will be Free Agents.

The Eagles financial house could be in ruins for the first time since before Joe Banner took over. You remember Joe Banner. He’s man they ousted in favor of Howie Roseman.

Between Roseman’s Dream Team free agent signings, lackluster Drafts, awarding overblown contracts, and unnecessary surrendering of Draft picks; Jeff Lurie is set to wear quite a lot of egg on his face for sticking with Roseman over Banner, since Roseman has so far failed in every aspect of his job.

Now Roseman has to find a way to erase mistakes (like DeSean Jackson‘s contract), to afford depth so that Chip Kelly doesn’t have to head into 2015 (possibly his last year depending on 2014), with a stripped down team.

Howie Roseman has to save his job, and he only has 2014 to do it before things escalate beyond the Eagles control. Things can’t be re-negotiated and put off, because beginning in 2016  Nick Foles will command north of $12M annually. So the future is already tapped out. Unless the sacrifices are made today.

This is the real reason behind the sudden need to move Jackson. Whether they want him or not, a $12M WR is a luxury that Philadelphia can no longer afford. Jackson will be leaving.

And now (gasp) there is even word that Jackson will be released if he can’t be traded. This surely lowers his trade value and almost guarantees that we get nothing for him. That’s not Jackson’s call. It’s not even Kelly’s. But it’s kind of frustrating right?

So then why are they letting Eagle fans stew with constant empty reports of a trade that they won’t even confirm they have interest in making? The reason is simple. It’s to deliberately frustrate you. To make you tired of hearing about it. To make you want SOMETHING to be done. It’s to drive you nuts, and to get you used to the idea, so that when (one way or the other) the trigger is pulled, you exclaim “FINALLY!!!” You’ll be so glad that it’s over, you won’t even realize that you just watched the Eagles do what the Cowboys just did with DeMarcus Ware.

Oh yes. That’s what Roseman is doing now.

Step back. This story could have been killed weeks ago. But they’re just letting it fester. No one in the organization is speaking on it. It doesn’t appear on the website. Just empty report after empty report. One tweeted rumor after another of a source close to a source. And it’s maddening.

The truth is they need your anger and frustration right now to help lubricate the next move. Drive up public ire, sample only those quotes/tweets/blogs that bad-mouth the player, then put it on your website, so it looks like the FANS made the case for whatever becomes of Jackson.

Because if they had simply surprised us with trading DJax, fans would have burned something down by now. Even the ones who are now claiming to be sick of him.

Now imagine that they had simply released him last month. Would you have been angry? Yes. You would have. And by now you still wouldn’t have gotten over it.

There’s a lot going on under the surface my friends. It is a very deep rabbit hole indeed.

*Note: It’s 1:12 a.m. I’m about to post this and STILL there is no word of this situation on the Eagles website. There is a story about Vick signing with the Jets, and not ONE word to address the Jackson Situation.