Howie Roseman Is to Blame for Eagles Wide Receiver Issues
The Eagles entered the 2019 season with the expectations of having a top 5, high flying offense. The reason for this excitement was because QB Carson Wentz was finally healthy and supposed to have talented receivers at his disposal.
Unfortunately, this proved to be fools gold as the Eagles have had among the worst production at the receiver position in the entire NFL.
While the coaching staff deserves part of the blame for this as they have been unable to get anything out of this crew, General Manager Howie Roseman is the main culprit for the position the Eagles have found themselves in. Before diving into the details, let’s recap the major moves made at the WR position over this past off-season.
Moves Made
- Traded a 6th round pick in 2019 for DeSean Jackson and a 7th round pick in 2020.
- Picked up Nelson Agholor’s 5th-year option for $9.3 million in 2019.
- Drafted JJ Arcega-Whiteside in the 2nd round of the 2019 draft.
- Fully guaranteed Alshon Jeffery’s 2020 salary of $15 million for 2019 cap-relief of roughly $8 million.
This position is Roseman’s biggest off-season failure. While trading for Jackson was smart, Jackson ended up hurting his abdomen in week 2 and, after a mysterious 8 weeks, had surgery to repair the injury and will miss the rest of the season. It is hard to blame Roseman for the extent of this situation as Jackson had never missed more than 5 games in a season in his entire career prior to this. What can be blamed on Roseman is essentially everything else regarding the state of the Eagles WRs.
While it would have been impossible to predict Jackson missing the entire season, Roseman still should have accounted for Jackson to miss time. The last time Jackson played all 16 games in the regular season was in 2013, so it was almost guaranteed that they would have had to be without him for at least some time. The biggest need the Eagles had during the 2018 season was speed on the outside, and the only thing done to fix that was to bring in Jackson. There was no plan for Jackson to miss time, and with no replacement in his absence the Eagles 2019 offense is just as slow and plodding as they were in 2018.
The Eagles tried to use Agholor in the role as a deep threat but he has not gotten the job done. He is not able to track the ball in the air and, with any contact from the opposing defensive back, he shows more interest in drawing a penalty than trying to make a contested catch.
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In the last year of his deal, the Eagles were hoping Agholor would step up, but he has been mostly a disaster. In week 2 he had a game losing drop, in week 3 he had multiple drops and a costly fumble, and in the 6 games since he has had a total of 14 catches on 26 targets for 114 yards. Not only has he been unproductive, but he has actively cost the team with drops and fumbles.
With Agholor struggling logic would suggest the Eagles could try and replace his production with a rookie 2nd round pick, but Arcega-Whiteside has been nonexistent all year. In weeks 2 and 3 he played the majority of the snaps and has 2 catches, 14 yards, and 1 game-losing drop to show for it. He has not been targeted since. This is especially painful to Eagles fans as there have been a number of receivers drafted after Arcega-Whiteside who have been productive for their teams, including Terry McLaurin for the Redskins and DK Metcalf on the Seahawks.
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Drafting Arcega-Whiteside was curious at the time and became even more curious when the Eagles guaranteed Jefferys 2020 salary. The book on Arcega-Whiteside coming out of Stanford was that he has a big body that wins with jump balls and contested catches as opposed to athleticism and route-running. For a team that desperately needed speed, it was interesting that the Eagles drafted somebody with a skill-set that mirrors Jeffery. The logical conclusion to draw from this was that Arcega-Whiteside was drafted to replace Jeffery in the 2020 season. Jeffery was due to make a lot of money in 2020, all of which could have been saved if he was released after the 2019 season.
On September 12th of this year, the Eagles restructured Jeffery’s deal to save around $8 million in 2019 and fully guaranteed his contract for 2020 of $15 million. This quickly quelled the notion of Jeffery being off the team for 2020 because it would cost the Eagles more money to release him ($26 mil in dead money) than it would to keep him on the roster at $15 million.
This was another move that was questioned at the time and has only gotten worse as the season has evolved. After scoring 2 TDs in week 1, Jeffery missed all of weeks 2 and 3 with a calf strain and has only scored twice since without surpassing 76 yards in a single game all year. He was never known as a speedster, but to the eye, Jeffery looks as though he is running slower than past seasons. Because of this Jeffery is less capable to create separation, but unlike past years he has not won on contested catches. The normally sure-handed Jeffery had 3 drops this past week against Chicago. All of which occurred on 3rd down and would have extended the drive if caught. It’s possible that Jeffery is still nursing the calf strain he suffered in week 2 and will look better after the bye week, but if this is just old age catching up to him that 2020 contract is going to look ugly.
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For the second season in a row, the Eagles had to bring back Jordan Matthews. Matthews is at least a reliable body, which is more than can be said about Mack Hollins. Similar to Arcega-Whiteside, Hollins has been a ghost recently. Since week 4, Hollins has had exactly 0 catches on 4 targets for 0 yards and 0 touchdowns. Unlike Arcega-Whiteside, Hollins has been on the field for the majority of snaps.
Hollins being one injury away from becoming a starting receiver is another decision that Roseman made this off-season that has not panned out well. Hollins missed all of 2018 with a mysterious groin injury that took over a year to heal. He was originally held out of training camp in the summer of 2018, then was placed on IR a few days before week 1. Fast forward a year later, and he was still not healthy to begin training camp. Once he did come back, he was quiet during the rest of the training camp and the pre-season, which should have been a sign of his role as the 4th receiver needed to be improved upon.
Overall, this receiving crew without Jackson leaves a ton to be desired. The worst part of this for the Eagles is that the trade deadline has passed which makes it much more difficult to find a meaningful contributor to join the roster. The Eagles did not make any trades before the deadline because they were confident in a healthy Jackson back, but he lasted all of 4 snaps in his brief return to the field. Not to say it is impossible, but there is a reason why receivers like Matthews are available 9 weeks into the season. Signing another receiver off some teams practice squad is another possibility that is unlikely to provide anything fruitful.
After an entire off-season of thinking the receivers were one of their greatest strengths, it must be hard for Roseman to accept the current reality the Eagles are in. He only has himself to blame though, as these issues can be directly attributed to how he navigated the receiver position in the off-season.
The Jackson injury situation was out of his control, but aside from that, every decision he made has not worked out. With there being little ways to improve in-season, hopefully, Roseman has a better plan to address the wide receivers this next off-season or else the Eagles are going to have long-term issues on offense.
Featured Photo: Yong Kim/Philly Inquirer
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