The Philadelphia Eagles are committed to Jalen Hurts, so it was nice to see a draft-day trade where they didn’t take a quarterback. This one has them trading down five spots to allow an AFC team to get in a position to grab a franchise starter. The Eagles also unload J.J. Arcega-Whiteside in this scenario.
ESPN’s Bill Barnwell put together a mock draft where he outlined 32 trades in the first round. That’s right, every team makes a move of some sort. Barnwell proposed the Eagles send the 15th overall pick and Arcega-Whiteside to the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for No. 20 and a 2023 second-round pick.
Important note: it was constructed prior to the news of Arcega-Whiteside moving from receiver to tight end. Barnwell’s reasoning was the Steelers need to move up five spots to jump the Saints and win the “quarterback wars.” He wrote the following:
Hope you like the Eagles and the Saints, because those two organizations hold four of the next five picks. This would be a smaller move for Pittsburgh, which would need to move up only five spots in this situation to get ahead of the Saints at No. 16 in the potential quarterback wars.
Arcega-Whiteside would be a flier for a team with a great track record of developing wideouts, while adding a 2023 second-round pick would give the Eagles a chance to score extra capital in the case they need to move up for a quarterback then.
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DeSean Jackson Mulling Retirement, Maybe
DeSean Jackson might be ready to hang up his cleats after 14 NFL seasons. The former Eagles star hasn’t received any offers in free agency and told Sports Illustrated that “he’s not really sure if I’m going to play [in 2022] or not.” However, the 35-year-old would consider returning for another year if certain teams blew up his phone.
“If the right situation calls, a great quarterback, not just a good [quarterback],” Jackson said, via CBS Sports. “There’s a few teams [I’d play for]: The Chiefs maybe one. The Browns. Russell Wilson in Denver. Green Bay… We’ll see for sure.”
Eagles Ready to Load Up in Deep NFL Draft
The NFL draft is less than a week away and the Eagles have a ton of holes to fill. They won’t be able to plug them all in the first round, so look for them to load up in the middle rounds where there’s excellent value. General manager Howie Roseman addressed their strategy earlier this week, stressing there is no “short-term fix.”
“There’s obviously a lot of time between now and the time the first game starts for us to continue to address the needs of this team,” Roseman said. “We’ll go into the draft, and we’ll follow the board. We have had a lot of discussions — a lot of good discussions — about the players in this draft, and we just have to make sure we take the best players and not look at the draft as just a short-term fix.”
NFL Insider Proposes Steelers-Eagles Trade to Win ‘Quarterback Wars’