Dallas Goedert’s return is a big win for the Eagles. It can still be a big one for him.

Every time the leaders of a major sports franchise decide whether to acquire or retain a player, the move is more than just an isolated roster transaction or evaluation of the athlete. It’s an assessment of the state of the franchise itself.

The owner, the general manager and player-personnel staff, the head coach and his assistants: All of them, to some degree, assist in a great inventory-taking. Where are we as a team? Are we rebuilding? Are we capable of winning a championship? Are we somewhere in between? Do we need to keep or add a particular player or two to get us closer to our goal? If so, do we have the financial ability to do that? Would we be better served by opening up salary-cap space and/or adding one or more draft picks?

This context accounts for why, in what just a few weeks ago would have qualified as a big surprise, Dallas Goedert will be the Eagles’ starting tight end this season.

For most of the spring, Goedert’s career arc, his contract, and the Eagles’ public comments about him pointed toward his departure. He turned 30 in January, and he was due to make $14.25 million in this, the final year of a four-year deal he signed in November 2021. These things have a way of heading toward predictable outcomes.

The Eagles hadn’t extended his contract last season, which suggested they weren’t going to extend it at all, and that $14.25 million wasn’t guaranteed, which made Goedert an obvious target for some books-clearing and cash retention. It seemed only a matter of time before the Eagles traded him. Instead, he’ll be back on a restructured deal: one year at $10 million with $1 million in possible incentives.

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This negotiation upended a lot of expectations and revealed a lot of realities, starting with the Eagles’ decision, in the aftermath of Super Bowl LIX, to keep living for today.

There was a time in their recent history when the Eagles would have traded Goedert come hell or a high fifth-round pick. Earlier in Jeffrey Lurie’s tenure as owner, Joe Banner was one of the pioneers of a two-pronged approach to staying in Super Bowl contention over time and managing the cap: 1. It’s smart to take calculated risks by signing promising players early at what likely will be below-market value; and 2. It’s better to say goodbye to a good player a year or two too soon than it is to pay him big money once the quality of his play has begun to decline.

That strategy is common now, but at the time, it was so revolutionary, and the Eagles became so identified with it, that there’s a tendency to see everything Lurie and Howie Roseman do now through that same prism. And given how unenthusiastic Roseman and Nick Sirianni were, at least overtly, about the prospect of Goedert returning, it looked like the Eagles were following that approach again.

But you didn’t have to be an NFL GM to recognize that such a strategy made no sense for the team that the Eagles are right now. They’re bringing back the best players from a dominant club, one that went 18-3 and probably should have gone 20-1, and those players are in their primes.

Goedert is vital to the Eagles’ offense; he’s a terrific blocker and receiver, and no player in team history has caught more passes in the postseason. Without him, tight end would have been an obvious and crippling weakness. With him, the Eagles can win another Super Bowl.

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They had to ask themselves: What’s better for us: having Goedert this season with this roster, or trading him for a draft pick that probably won’t help us for another year or two, if at all?

For Goedert, the situation was more fraught. It’s lousy for him that he’s taking a $4 million haircut to remain in Philadelphia, but his options weren’t that appealing. He could have insisted on playing this season at his original salary, which would have led to the Eagles’ trading or releasing him. But in neither scenario was he likely to be better off.

Was there a team out there willing to acquire him for this season, then sign him to a long-term contract? If there had been, he’d be on that team now. He had to ask himself, What’s better for me: taking a pay cut to stay where the odds are good I’m going to win and produce, or seeking a trade to a place where I might not win or produce and might hit free agency at age 31 coming off a down year?

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Throughout each Eagles season, I keep a Google Drive file of notes, quotes, and observations that I gather from the first night of the NFL draft through the final game. During the Eagles’ wild-card victory over the Green Bay Packers, Goedert used a vicious stiff-arm to fend off cornerback Carrington Valentine on his way to a 24-yard touchdown. As Goedert rumbled to the end zone, I typed: just manhandles Valentine on TD. emasculating.

A team capable of winning back-to-back Super Bowls should keep a player like that, and the player himself might want to stay. It turned out that both of them did.

The Eagles are better off for it. Dallas Goedert still can be.