Eagles 2026 Offseason Series: The salary cap and our free agents

This is part two of my off-season mock series where I’ll dive into the Eagles salary cap outlook, extensions, and who I’m bringing back and not.

Part 1: 2026 Roster Outlook and Priorities Summary:

• We still have one of the best rosters in the league thanks to Howie’s roster building approach
• But there’s more risk in 2026-27 than in previous years with near-term holes at difficult to fill positions including CB and EDGE, no TEs under contract, and a need at WR and OL (including a Lane replacement) over the next couple of years
• The coming extensions willl require some tough decisions and limit free agency spend

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The Eagles current salary cap outlook

The 2025 salary cap is $279.2M, up 9.3% from 2024, and while we don’t know the forward cap numbers yet, we can estimate them – for this I’m using a little over 8% annual growth.

	2026	2027	2028
Estimated salary cap	$302M	$328M	$357M
Eagles effective cap space	$20.8M	$103.8M	$110.8M
League rank	18th	18th	29th
# of players under contract	50	37	29

Note that these numbers are different from OverTheCap’s because I am using the average growth of the cap which gives a a higher estimated cap

While the Eagles are near middle of the league in 2026-27, they actually have less flexibility than most teams around them because Howie’s minimum-salary-option-bonus-void-year contract structures don’t have salary that can be converted into signing bonuses – he effectively “pre-restructures” all of his deals.

This is why Howie’s prudence during the 2025 off-season, avoiding any big signings and making some tough choices on players like Isaiah Rodgers, Milton Williams, Josh Sweat, and Mehki Becton, was so critical to accumulating cap space ahead of the extensions that starting to be upon us.

The key point to know on the cap is that we are in decent shape in 2026 and 2027, but 2028 is the problem as we will see once we start extending guys.

There are usually few cap-moving moves the Eagles can make, which is a testament to how forward-looking Howie is on contracts, rarely getting himself into trouble. But there are a couple we will make:

2026 Moves

Release CB Michael Carter II
Howie absorbed the Jets contract structure and Carter’s cap hit goes from $1.2M in 2025 to $10.25M in each of the next two seasons. With $9.7M of that in salary, he could be restructured but there’s no way we are paying $10M a year for a guy who’s played 41 snaps.

Release SAF Sydney Brown and DT Byron Young
Both still on their rookie deals, the savings are minimal over a replacement-level player, but neither has a spot on this team moving forward – this is more about them not being guys I want. Combined, it’s $3M of cap savings in 2026.

Looking ahead to 2027 and 2028 moves

Howie always structures contracts with a logical “out” year and it’s important to look ahead to which players are likely to leave when. There will be more, but a few big ones to clean up the cap estimates here:

Lane Johnson: retire after the 2026 season with a post 6/1 designation
In my book, Lane is the greatest Eagle to ever play, probably only challenged by Reggie White, and will play as long as he wants to. But he only has guaranteed money in 2026 and previously pointed to “two more years”, meaning the 2025 and 2026 seasons. All of the core guys retirements require a post 6/1 retirement and Lane’s brings $8.2M of savings in 2027 and $27.5M in 2028.

Zack Baun: release after the 2026 season with a post 6/1 designation
This is the easy one. He has no guaranteed money after 2026 and will save $5.6M in 2027 and $11.7M in 2028 with a post 6/1 release after next season. If he is playing at an insane level, he’d cost $17M to keep for 2027, but with Jihaad Campbell here, Baun will be leaving.

Saquon Barkley: release after the 2027 season with a post 6/1 designation
Saquon’s deal is a bit more interesting than Baun’s, without a clear out year as there is some guaranteed money in 2027, making a 2027 post 6/1 release possible but without large savings due to the large dead cap remaining ($4.2M of 2027 savings). We keep him through the 2027 season and then he’s released, saving $11.1M of cap in 2028.

AJ Brown: release after the 2027 season with a post 6/1 designation OR trade after the 2026 season
AJ is the interesting one as his deal is set up to give an out after the 2026 or 2027 seasons and it all comes down to how well he is playing. Effectively he will “cost” the Eagles $11M in 2027 to keep him (or more accurately, they only save $11M by releasing him after the 2026 season) – even with AJ beginning to degrade, he’s going to still be worth the $11M opportunity cost to the Eagles. But a trade could be interesting next season, saving $11M in 2027 and $12M in 2028, plus whatever return you get.

Next year in my off-season mock, I am definitely listening to offers on AJ which again reinforces why we need to start looking for another WR option.

Updated cap space outlook

Below is an updated cap outlook after the above moves (note that I’ve adjusted for the additional empty roster spots to get an effective cap number, which is why the new cap space isn’t just the previous cap space plus the new savings)

	2026	2027	2028
Updated cap space	$29.7M	$124.8M	$148.0M
League rank	11th	10th	20th

Take the league rank with a grain of salt as this obviously isn’t reflecting other teams’ moves which will free space up – I put the ranks in primarily to show that the Eagles are still in a tight spot in 2028, even after the above moves.

Now what we have known has been coming for a while… trying to pay the guys from Howie’s amazing draft run. I’ll do my best to project what these contracts will be and once you know that, the cap hits are fairly straightforward as Howie has a predictable structure to his deals.

Remember that contract values go up every year with the salary cap, so player comps need to be adjusted for 5-10% per year inflation, depending on the position.

Player	FA Year	Projection	Comps
Jaelan Phillips	2026	3 yr / $90M with $59M gtd	Nik Bonnito – 4 yr / $106M ($26.5M AAV) Danielle Hunter – 1 yr / $35M
Nakobe Dean	2026	2 yr / $14M with $5M gtd	Divine Deablo – 2 yr / $14M ($7M AAV) Devin Bush – 1 yr $3.25M
Reed Blankenship	2026	3 yr / $35M with $23M gtd	Justin Reid – 3 yr / $31.5M ($10.5M AAV) Talanoa Hufanga – 3 yr / $39M ($13M AAV)
Dallas Goedert	2026	3 yr / $40M with $25M gtd	Mark Andrews – 3 yr / $39.3M ($13.1M AAV) TJ Hockenson – 4 yr / $66M ($16.5M AAV)
Jordan Davis	2027	3 yr / $75M with $49M gtd	Alim McNeil – 4 yr / $97M ($24.5M AAV)
Jalen Carter	2027	5th year option plus a 3 yr / $126M	Chris Jones – 5 yr / $158M ($31.75M AAV)
Nolan Smith	2027	5th year option plus a 3 yr $90M	Brian Burns – 5 yr / $141M ($28.2M AAV)
Tyler Steen	2027	3 yr / $51M	Sam Cosmi – 4 yr / $74M ($18.5M AAV) Kevin Dotson – 3 yr / $48M ($16M AAV)
Quinyon Mitchell	2028	5th yr option plus a 3 yr / $105M	Sauce Gardner – 4 yr / $120M ($30M AAV) Derek Stingley – 3 yr / $90M ($30M AAV)
Cooper DeJean	2028	3 yr / $75M with $49M gtd	Jalen Pitre – 3 yr / $39M ($13M AAV) Marlon Humphrey – 5 yr / $97.5M ($19.5M AAV)
Jalyx Hunt	2028	3 yr / $65M with $43M gtd	Harold Landry – 3 yr / $43.5M ($14.5M AAV) Jonathan Greenard – 4 yr / $76M ($19M AAV)

Who are you re-signing…?

This is the fun of the off-season as there’s not a right answer, it depends on how you want to build your roster. Here’s what I’m doing with an eye on maintaining some cap flexibility for free agency.

2026 off-season moves:

• Execute Jalen Carter and Nolan Smith’s 5th year options and extend each – Absolute no brainers. Both options can be picked up this off-season and must be decided upon by early May.
• Extend Jordan Davis – I assume this is a no-brainer but I know there have been mixed opinions on Davis. He brings so much more to this defense than his stats show.
• Re-sign Jaelan Phillips – I’d normally never do this and if we drafted an EDGE last year, I would let him walk and collect the R3 comp pick, but Howie put the Eagles in a position where you almost have to sign him. Given this is effectively a 2-year deal, we have room to pay him and plan to replace with a draft pick, which I will do this year.
• Let Reed Blankenship go – It’s a weak safety free agent class this year which will likely push his market up. I hate to break up the Exciting Mics podcast, but we can’t pay everybody.
• Let Nakobe go – His deal is so hard to project… without the injury, he’s a 3-year, $30-35M LB but could see his market limited to a 1-year deal in a good LB free agency class. If he was a 1-yr / $5-7M “prove it” deal I’d bring him back, above that he isn’t affordable and the Eagles are prepared without him with Baun, Jihaad, JTJ, and Smael.
• Let Dallas Goedert go – This one hurts a bit as he’s earned whatever deal he gets, but a $12-14M multi-year AAV deal is just not affordable.
• Re-sign Braden Mann – He’s quietly the Eagles best punter in franchise history, you bring him back.
• Of the smaller free agents, many could come back on vet min deals but I’m letting Grant Calcaterra, Jahan Dotson, Adoree Jackson, and Matt Pryor go and re-signing Fred Johnson (probably $3M AAV for 1-2 years) and Sam Howell (probably another near vet min deal)
• One non-cap related move is I am working Kelee Ringo out at SAF in the off-season to see if he can make the move there.

Planned 2027 off-season moves:

• Execute Quinyon Mitchell’s 5th year option and extend – You just aren’t letting Quinyon, who is playing like the best corner in the league
• Plan to replace Tyler Steen – He’s good, not great, and likely will be a guy that is paid more than he’s worth. We have time to replace him and will look to do so in the draft.
• Moro Ojomo TBD – It’s early to project his free agency market, but if he keeps progressing, he’s going to get a big deal. He’s a guy I want to keep, and will try to, but it shows the issue the Eagles have moving forward.
• A few other interesting players to keep an eye on – both Cam Jurgens and Jake Elliott have no guaranteed money left in 2027 and depending on Cam’s health and Jake’s level of play, both could be upgraded
• Restructure (extend) Jalen Hurts’ contract – This is the one lever to pull and with Hurts’ guaranteed money done after 2026, his contract will get re-done in either 2026 or 2027. Years and guarantee will be added in exchange for freeing upp near-term cap space – while it’s early to project this, I’m assuming $10-15M of cap space is free in 2027-28.

Updated salary cap outlook after these moves

After the above moves, the cap is still in pretty good shape.

	2026	2027	2028
Extension / re-signings cap hits	$13.8M	$52.8M	$105.8M
Updated cap space	$15.9M	$82.0M	$57.2M

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What would you do differently?

A rough guide to converting Howie contracts to cap hits is to use the following (this uses a 3-year contract because that’s typically the deals that are done):

3-Yr Contract	Year 1 Cap Hit	Year 2 Cap Hit	Year 3 Cap Hit	Year 4 Cap Hit (Void Yrs)
% of total contract that hits the cap	12%	17%	23%	48%

I put this here in case you want to play with your own moves. As an example, if you think I’m wrong for letting Goedert or Nakobe or Reed go, you can see how re-signing them affects the cap:

	2026	2027	2028	2029
Dallas Goedert	$4.8M	$6.8M	$9.2M	$19.2M
Reed Blankenship	$4.2M	$6.0M	$8.1M	$15.4M
Nakobe Dean	$2.5M	$3.6M	$4.8M	$10.1M

Could you sign some or all of them? Sure. Or do you pass on Jaelan Phillips (which is defensible) and bring these guys back? Maybe Goedert does another 1-year, $10M deal and maybe teams hesitate on a multi-year deal for Nakobe in a very strong LB free agency class, allowing him to return on a 1-year $5-7M deal.

But if you signed all of them along with the moves I made above, you run out of 2026 cap space and cut 2028’s space in half before you’ve signed any other free agents you may want (and there are definitely still needs out there).

But the most important point on maintaining some added cap flexibility moving forward is the Eagles have a WR and RT to replace over the next 1-2 years and you cannot just assume you get an AJ Brown or Lane Johnson replacement in the draft.

The way Howie’s contracts are set up, you can’t release guys ahead of their planned out year without taking a cap hit which means if you already spent the entire cap moving forward, miss in the draft and need a guy, our hands are tied.

Both WR and OT are positional priorities for me in the draft, but just like Howie had to go to the trade market to get AJ, we have to leave the option to do so again. And that’s why I am making some of the tough decisions above.

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Coming soon is part 3 in the off-season mock series where I’ll look at free agency and the guys I’m targeting ahead of the draft.