The biggest question everyone wanted to know about the sneaky good move to land Ryan Kerrigan was how much did it cost? Well, the Philadelphia Eagles got a future Hall of Famer for a song and a dance.
Kerrigan will make just $3.5 million in base salary this season, per NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport. That’s a flat-out steal for a guy with 95.5 career sacks and 454 total tackles (119 for loss). The former Washington Football Team star will earn $6.5 million less than Derek Barnett who has 19.5 career sacks. Many fans took to Twitter on Monday to compare the Kerrigan signing to the Eagles bringing in Chris Long in 2017. Long’s contributions were invaluable to the Super Bowl run.
“We’re pleased to add a player and person of Ryan’s caliber to our team,” general manager Howie Roseman said, via the Eagles official website. “For the last 10 seasons, we’ve seen firsthand how Ryan can affect a game on the field and we know that adding a veteran presence to our locker room can only benefit our young players. Ryan is excited to show Eagles fans he’s got plenty left in his game and we look forward to seeing him do just that this season.”
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Eagles Hire New ‘Quantitative Analyst’
According to ESPN’s Seth Walder, the Eagles are hiring Zachary Steever to be their new quantitative analyst. What is a quantitative analyst? Good question.
The position falls under the jurisdiction of the analytics department and the person reports to Alec Halaby — the mysterious and polarizing figure from Harvard who was mentioned in a scathing report. Here is the job description and position summary for the quantitative analyst:
The Senior Quantitative Analyst will join the analytics team within Football Operations. The position will expose candidates to all parts of the modern NFL front office, including player evaluation, game preparation, resource allocation, sports science, and player development. The job involves working with a wide variety of football data to draw insights and improve decision-making. A strong candidate for this role will have relevant work experience and/or graduate-level training in a quantitative discipline.
Steever earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Buffalo and advised the NFL on how to make schedules fairer. He helped “eliminate every potential quirk or disparity,” per ESPN, through a process known as integer programming. It’s really nerdy stuff, but many NFL organizations have jumped on the trend.
Steever was mentioned in this 2019 @SeifertESPN story on the NFL schedule:
Eagles Looking to Add Veteran Quarterback?
There have been rumors that the Eagles might add another quarterback to the roster. Jalen Hurts is entrenched as the starter, with Joe Flacco backing him up. The only other quarterback with a midnight green jersey right now is undrafted rookie free agent Jamie Newman. Head coach Nick Sirianni was asked about the possibility of bringing in a veteran last week.
“You know what, we don’t comment on anybody on other rosters, so you know, there hasn’t been any talk about that,” Sirianni said. “We just don’t comment on anybody from other rosters. Really no reason to go there with anything.”
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