Howie Roseman does it again: the Eagles bolster their playoff roster with Kevin Byard.
Philadelphia has added a talented player to an injury-ravaged secondary with a championship run in mind.
A excellent artist is someone who can grasp the material in our dreams and transform it into reality. The football general manager equivalent of that is someone who can take trades proposed by Tino from Fishtown on WIP—you know, the ones that get him laughed off the radio because they’re absolutely ludicrous and unfounded—and actually make them happen.
This is why, on Monday, the football world once again praised Eagles GM Howie Roseman for stealing a two-time All-Pro safety, Kevin Byard, from the Titans. What is the price? A fifth- and sixth-round draft pick in 2024, as well as safety Terrell Edmunds. While Byard is 30, and high-mileage players lose value like worn pontoons in their third decade, he is still a great pass defender who doesn’t miss tackles and is equally at home near the line of scrimmage. Byard, like Malcolm Jenkins during Philadelphia’s championship season in 2017, can make the defense more amoebic while maintaining run support.
The benefits of this exchange are self-evident. An injury-ravaged Eagles secondary receives a player who was once considered one of the top defensive players in the game. Byard will almost certainly make a play against Travis Kelce in a Super Bowl rematch, because this is the type of move that general managers interested in making it to Las Vegas make. The Eagles’ Week 13 game against the 49ers will show how far Byard can raise a defense against teams with many, big-bodied threats and a downhill running game.
The con is just one lingering question I have about the squad that let Byard go: Why does Tennessee continue to allow this to happen?
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with getting assets back for a player who will not benefit a team in the long run and will cost the team more in cash than the value he would contribute in the short term. The Titans are unlikely to be a major contender for the AFC title in the next year or two. The Titans basically got a fourth-round pick (about the equivalent of a fifth and sixth-round pick combined) plus Edmunds, a former first-round pick with a greater remaining ceiling than Byard just by having fewer snaps behind him and more ahead of him. It’s not too awful for a haul.
The issue is one of perspective. The Titans have effectively laid the groundwork for another Eagles Super Bowl run. The A.J. Brown transfer, which was completed by a different general manager, is still regarded as one of the most one-sided transactions in the last decade. Brown is only improving. In case you missed it, he single-handedly dismantled a Vic Fangio secondary on Sunday Night Football.
Now, a new general manager is sending another one of the franchise’s cornerstone players, an example of previous accomplishments and processes, to a team that will help him realize his full potential (in terms of reaching the Super Bowl). How can it not restore in your locker room the notion that winning big—and, in Brown’s case, being paid—happens somewhere else? How can everyone not feel like the Eagles’ farm team?
I’m not blaming Mike Vrabel, who I’m sure relished the Brown trade as much as we may enjoy stumbling on a lego in the middle of the night or locking the vehicle door with the fat of our palm. It’s more of a feeling of pity. In an ideal world, he’d still have Brown, and the Titans would be competitive instead of driving Derek Henry about like a lost Humvee in the desert.
In Philadelphia’s modern run of championship contention (their Super Bowl LII win to now), we’ve seen their rises timed with this idea of rewarding and taking care of tenured talent. Most everyone gets paid, or at the very least, supported. I wrote about this last year when the Eagles shelled out for a pair of defensive tackles to alleviate the pressure on their overworked defensive line.
Tennessee does not have that luxury, and it is probably not prudent to do so right now, which is why the Titans found themselves as sellers at the trade deadline in the first place. It’s more of a look at what could have been vs what is currently happening. Another good player has left for Philadelphia. Another radio caller fever fantasy realized. Another group of Titans is wondering if this is simply the way forward.
