Mike Florio has delivered a video segment on the Eagles' practice of handing out long-term contracts to young players early in their careers, and how it has led them into the mess with Sheldon Brown, who is now demanding a trade after the team has refused to give him a new contract.
As with just about everything Florio says or writes about the Eagles, his argument is lifted directly from WIP conventional wisdom- I've heard Glen Macnow, Hugh Douglas and others make the exact same argument, practically word-for-word. The argument is that the Eagles, in handing out "below-market contracts" to young players, are shooting themselves in the foot and not treating their players well.
Here's the Eagles' M.O. when it comes to player personnel: They draft as well as they can, build the core of the team that way, and use trades and free agency to fill holes. When players are two or three years into their rookie contract, the team decides to "catch them on the way up," and sign them to an extension- for much more money than the player was making before, but for less than he would make in free agency a few days later. Then, as the player nears the end of his contract, he's usually traded or released.
This M.O. has led the Eagles to keep virtually every player they want to keep, kept them way under the cap, and gotten them to the playoffs most years. And, the team has a nearly spotless record in getting rid of players at exactly the right time. The drawback is that the team occasionally falls into an ugly contract dispute with a player, as is happening now with Brown.
I'm not sure where I come down on Brown- he's a very good player who's certainly underpaid, and I don't fault him for seeking a trade if making more money before he retires is what is important to him. This isn't like the Terrell Owens situation, which TO demanded a renegotiation one year into a long-term deal- something totally unprecedented in the league- and then sabotaged the team when he didn't get it. But then again- why'd Brown sign the contract? Doesn't he know that if you sign an eight-year extension, you can't get a raise for eight years?
But what I don't understand is what the alternative is for the Eagles- should they just let every one of their young players go to free agency? Never sign any extensions? Take the Washington Redskins tack of trading your draft picks, signing over-the-hill big name veterans, having a different head coach or coordinator every other years, and otherwise run the team like a typical uneducated fan?