Reinforcements Are Coming

The general sense among Eagles fans seems to be that the team isn't going to be that aggressive this offseason.  They will patch a hole here or there, but overall the roster in September is going to look pretty much the way it does right now.

I think that's way off. 

In fact, I think we're about to enter the most volatile and exciting (in terms of transactions, not soap opera drama) offseason since the Kearse / Owens exacta of 2004.  Here are some reasons why:

1.  Contrary to popular opinion, the Eagles' salary cap situation is fantastic.  I know it doesn't look that great at first glance, but there are three factors people are (mostly) forgetting:

• The available cap room will grow when year-end cuts are made (most people are on this one).
• The Eagles have a higher proportion of their players under contract already.  (With only 39 guys under contract for next season -- and a new contract in line for Marques Colston -- New Orleans is going to burn through that $30 million in a hurry.)
• The 2008 cap numbers are just a snapshot of what is in actuality a moving picture.

I bolded out that last one because it's really the most important.  Capology in the NFL used to be about cramming as much salary as you could into your available space each year to build/keep a squad together for a run at the Super Bowl.  Although the Redsksins still run things that way, it's not how the rest of the league does business any more. 

If someone out there could put together a salary cap table that moved beyond 2008 and included information on 2009, 2010 and 2011, what you would find is that almost every team had massive amounts of available salary cap space.  But the difference is that the Eagles would have all that space available AND a core of solid young players locked up whose cap-killing bonus payments are behind them.  (Which means the salary cap parts of this and this are wrong, incidentally.) 

The net result of maximizing every inch of cap room for the past few seasons is that the Eagles have way more than enough money to spend on big-time free agents -- if they so choose.  All they have to do is structure the contract so that the cap hits come a little bit later, and boom, they can pay as much or more than anyone else in the league without hamstringing themselves in the future.

2.  The offense is set, so the defense can be the focus.  Look, we all agree the Eagles need some more offensive weapons.  But all that means is we're talking about one great player or two pretty good ones.  There will be more than enough money left over to fix the defense -- and it should be clear to everyone by now that the defense needs fixing.

It's not a bad unit.  They learned how to stop the run this year and they played with a lot of heart in a lot of tough situations.  But the pass defense really wasn't good at all:

Not all of those numbers are terrible (note that the sack statistic is more in line with past performance than people probably realize), but the big problem is simply that the Eagles gave up way too many yards through the air per play.  In fact, only two teams gave up more than the twelve 40+ yard passing plays the Eagles did this year. 

Those numbers are a clear sign that the Eagles could use help in the secondary and on the defensive line.

3.  The window is right now.  You probably think I'm talking about McNabb, but if The Franchise gets hit by a car tomorrow and Kevin Kolb is an amazingly fast learner and struggles far less than most young quarterbacks do (Tony Romo in the playoffs, anyone?), and the Eagles magically grow up around him so that he doesn't have to shoulder too much of the offense, then POSSIBLY he could be ready to win a Super Bowl in the last year of the "dominant" phase of Brian Westbrook's career.

Translation: "Win now, baby."