Howie Roseman’s quarterback factory is expanding. With Joshua Uche and friends, the Eagles are playing the odds
We are witnessing the offseason of the Roseman Doctrine. We’ll give you a one-year contract and a chance to make something of your career.
This is like Dunkin’ dropping the Donuts.
Or Angi dropping the List.
The Quarterback Factory is no longer.
The Factory is now in business.
Howie Roseman is looking for value this offseason. Doesn’t matter the position. You got it. They want it. Simple as that.
Joshua Uche, Kenyon Green, AJ Dillon … this isn’t your typical early-offseason crop. None was on anybody’s list of top 25 free agents — or, in Green’s case, top 25 offseason trade targets. None will be penciled in as a bona fide difference maker. And, yet, all entered the league as first- or second-round picks. All possess elite physical characteristics. All are age 26 or younger.
The free agent market is not typically the place where teams look for ceiling. It’s why the free agent market is a loser’s bazaar. By definition, you are signing someone whom another team did not deem worthy of signing. The depreciation curves are steeper than a carton of cage-free eggs. Free agents are the casino lounge acts of the NFL. Atlantic City, if you are lucky.
» READ MORE: Expect trade market, draft to make up for Eagles’ free-agency wipeout, amid Howie Roseman’s plea for ‘patience’
The Eagles are rewriting that script this offseason. Due to necessity, mostly. But, due partly to the memories of guys like Zack Braun and Mekhi Becton.
We are witnessing the offseason of the Roseman Doctrine. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe, as long as they have talent. We’ll give you a one-year contract and a chance to make something of your career.
The latest example comes in the form of the one-year contract that Uche agreed to on Thursday. The No. 60 overall pick in the 2020 draft, Uche looked to be on the verge of stardom at one point. In 2022, he broke out for the Patriots with 11½ sacks and nine tackles for loss in just 374 snaps. Compare that to Bryce Huff’s 2023 season with the Jets: 10 sacks, 10 tackles for loss, 480 snaps. Who knows kind of contract Uche would have landed had he hit free agency after that season.
The intervening years have not been kind. He fell out of favor in New England and then was shipped to the Chiefs at the trade deadline for a 2026 sixth-round pick.
But here are a couple of interesting statistics: Uche is just 26 years old, and he has played for three different coaching staffs over the last two seasons.
Same goes for Green.
The Eagles acquired the soon to be 24-year-old guard in the trade that sent C.J. Gardner-Johnson to Houston. Only three years ago, Green was the No. 15 pick in the draft. Think about what that means.
In a crowdsourced survey of NFL general managers, Green was regarded as the 15th most-talented football player in his class. He started 14 games as a rookie, then missed his second season with a shoulder injury. In the meantime, the Texans changed coaches. He fell out of favor this season. He is now an Eagle.
Dillon’s situation is different, in a lot of respects. The No. 62 overall pick in 2020, he saw plenty of run in his five years in Green Bay. He plays the same position as Saquon Barkley, so the Eagles hope they won’t need him. But the similarities to Uche are similar: high draft pick, unique size, and another member of that 2020 draft class.
» READ MORE: Eagles go to the bargain bin, agreeing to terms with LB Joshua Uche and TE Harrison Bryant
It would be a stretch to say the Eagles are anticipating the next Baun. But what if a reasonable floor is the next Becton?
Give me talent and intangibles. We’ll give the coaching, the scheme, and the environment.
The Eagles are playing the odds. The are doing it at scale due to their cap situation. But they have been doing it for years. Before Jordan Mailata there was Dillon Gordon. Before Baun there was Genard Avery. D’Andre Swift, Trey Sermon. Some hit, some don’t.
“I think you’re always trying to find competitive advantages,” Roseman said at the NFL scouting combine two weeks ago. “That’s something you’re always looking for. I think you also have to look at the strengths of the class in free agency and the draft and see what the opportunities really are. You can’t just make up opportunities even if you want to be creative.”
The difference between the Eagles now and those of previous seasons is that they entered the offseason with one of the most talented rosters in NFL history. They know that. We know that. Heck, most of the world knows it after watching Super Bowl. Players, included.
You heard it in Green’s voice on Thursday. He talked like a man who understood the opportunity before him. He saw what Becton did alongside Mailata, Lane Johnson, Landon Dickerson, and Cam Jurgens.
“I’m very excited to get to meet all of them, be in the room with them, and become a part of the brotherhood,” Green said.
» READ MORE: Eagles trade is a ‘breath of fresh air’ for Kenyon Green. Can Jeff Stoutland’s tutelage revive his career?
It doesn’t always work out. Six years ago, the Eagles signed a 26-year-old guard named Chance Warmack with the hope that his talent would play in a new situation. A former No. 10 pick in the draft out of Alabama, Warmack had spent four lackluster years with the Titans, who declined his fifth-year option.
It was one of Roseman’s more intriguing moves of the pre-2017 offseason. Warmack was out of the league two years later.
The mathematical term is called probability, not certainty. Otherwise, the Eagles wouldn’t have anything to gain by playing the odds. There would be no odds. There would be no competitive advantage. Every team would find the diamonds.
The odds of any one of them hitting are slim.
The odds of one of them hitting?
It’s an intriguing thought to follow.