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Jan 11, 2026; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman looks on during warmups prior to an NFC Wild Card Round game against the San Francisco 49ers at Lincoln Financial Field. Bill Streicher-Imagn Images

Retention Is Splashy For Eagles’ GM Howie Roseman

Originally posted on Philadelphia Eagles on SI
By John McMullen | Last updated Feb 24, 2026 11:55 AM ET

Howie Roseman understands his job better than most of his peers, and experience has taught the well-regarded Eagles’ general manager that discipline is the best path to a championship.

“You can just shuffle deck chairs and just say ‘Hey I'm gonna trade out this guy because he's not ours,’ and maybe it's a better PR move that ‘Hey, we're active.’” Roseman said during a pre-scouting combine discussion with reporters.

“Look they signed this guy, but that means we're gonna have to get rid of one of our own guys, and so everything we do at this point is a trade-off. If we do this, we're gonna have to get rid of that."

The Eagles have drafted so well since 2021 that retention has become the goal in the newly-minted Jefferson Health Training Complex.

“I think from a big picture perspective, we want to build a team that every year has a chance to compete for championships, that drafts really well, and signs their own players and just sporadically goes into free agency,” said Roseman.

“That's what we're trying to do.”

And that takes extraordinary discipline in a microwave society.

If the Eagles re-sign Jaelan Phillips, for instance, that doesn’t feel the same to the average fan as a trade for say Maxx Crosby.

“Sometimes as much as you want to add from outside and you want to change it up, you got to make a decision to keep the players you know have played well and are part of your culture,” Roseman explained.

The philosophy has worked to the point that the Eagles have three Super Bowl berths, two Lombardi Trophies, and eight postseason berths over the past nine years, a resume the vast majority of NFL teams envy.

The Layer Cake

The Eagles have compiled so many good players that they had to let emerging defensive tackle Milton Williams and proven edge defender Josh Sweat walk last year in free agency.

This year it might have to be be linebacker Nakobe Dean.

All of that is made easier because Roseman had young, emerging defensive front players like Moro Ojomo, Nolan Smith and Jalyx Hunt in his chamber for last season, and 2025 first-round pick Jihaad Campbell ready to tag in for Dean in 2026.

“Can we keep all our guys?" Roseman asked rhetorically. “… No, we are going to have to make choices. For us to sign them, that's gonna limit some flexibility with outside players.”

Furthermore, this is not the best year for free agency, according to multiple NFL sources.

“You combine that with the fact that teams, because there's more cap room, because the cap has gone up, teams have done a great job of signing their own players,” Roseman mused.

Substance has won in Philadelphia, not the sizzle of placating those who live and die with each news cycle.

“That's the right way to build teams here. To draft, develop, re-sign,” Roseman said. “And I know that's not flashy.”

Roseman, though, will still go big-game hunting for the right player, evidenced last year by checking in on the potential availability of both Myles Garrett and Micah Parsons.

“That doesn't mean that we can't do splashy things,” the GM noted. “But from a broad perspective, if we can keep our players, if we can keep a lot of these young, really good players that we know that we live with, so we know who they are as people, and then it's like a cake, it's like a layer cake.

“Then you build on top of it with more good draft picks and more good young players, and then the cycle starts again. That's ideally how we'd like to do that.”

This article first appeared on Philadelphia Eagles on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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