PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Quick fixes are not part of the plan for the Philadelphia Eagles this offseason.
After finishing 7-9 under first-year coach Doug Pederson with rookie quarterback Carson Wentz starting every game, top executive Howie Roseman made it clear the goal isn’t to build a team that just makes the playoffs.
The Eagles have been there, done that. They want to compete for a Super Bowl, not a wild-card spot. Those lofty goals will guide the team’s direction in the coming months.
“When you go back and look at 2008 when we were in the (NFC) Championship Game and 2009 and 2010, 10-6 isn’t good enough to get home-field advantage, to compete for a championship,” Roseman said Wednesday . “It’s a huge edge to have that bye. So we have to build the team with that in mind. I think some of the things that we’ve done over the past few years have been to get to 10-6 and that’s not good enough.”
Pederson and his players fully expect to compete for the playoffs in 2017. They point to six losses by one score or less and figure they would’ve made it this season if right tackle Lane Johnson hadn’t been suspended 10 games. They were 5-1 with Johnson, 2-8 without him.
Perhaps a couple additions - a playmaker on offense and a shutdown cornerback - will be the difference between seven wins and 10 wins. But this team has too many holes to win 12 games or however many necessary to secure a first-round bye.
“When you look at a 10-6 team, you can put Band-Aids on some things,” Roseman said. “We have a 24-year-old quarterback. We have to do the right things so that when you look around the league, those guys are all taking off, the team is ready to take off with them. There’s a big difference between competing to make the playoffs and being a wild-card team, and getting a bye in the playoffs.”
Roseman said vice president of player personnel Joe Douglas will be responsible for setting the draft board, but that the final say will be a “collaborative effort.”
“He has a way of looking and evaluating players that is different than what we’ve done in the past, and quite frankly we needed that,” Roseman said. “He has full rein to set the draft board. He’s involved in every discussion we have about building this team and I think we’ll start seeing dividends. We saw some of them with our waiver cuts and I think we’ll continue to see dividends as we go through the offseason.”
Roseman wouldn’t comment about specific players or even positions the team will target. The Eagles won’t have much room under the salary cap unless they release or trade some of the higher-paid guys.
“It’s a unique situation for us as an organization,” he said. “We are going to have to make some hard decisions and do the right things for our team, not only for this year, but going forward.”
The Eagles recouped some of the draft picks they traded away for Wentz by trading Sam Bradford to Minnesota. They’ll have the Vikings’ first-round pick, either No. 14 or 15 to be determined by coin flip. They also have one pick in every round and will have two in the fourth or fifth, depending on the NFL’s compensatory breakdown.
___
AP NFL website: www.pro32.ap.org and www.twitter.com/AP_NFL
___
Follow Rob Maaddi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_RobMaaddi
Please read our comment policy before commenting.