It remains to be seen if Philadelphia’s top tight end will be re-signed after 2025.
The Philadelphia Eagles had one of the busiest offseasons in the NFL, rewarding Saquon Barkley, Zack Baun, and other key contributors while moving on from starters like Darius Slay and James Bradberry. Philadelphia’s roster is in a strong position as the team prepares to defend their Super Bowl title, with plenty of financial flexibility for the 2025 season and $31.1 million in top-51 salary cap space.
Much of that flexibility is due to Howie Roseman’s propensity for extremely aggressive contract structures and heavily backloaded deals. That’s a strategy that has worked quite well for the Eagles – they just won a Super Bowl! — but carries a fair amount of long-term financial risk. Put simply, the strategy works as long as the players you choose to pay continue to play well and stay healthy, and you continue to draft well to stock the roster with young, affordable talent.
Philadelphia has nailed this so far, which is why the team is the favorite to repeat as Super Bowl champions in 2025 with plenty of cap space to spare this season and the third-most dead cap in the NFL.
2025 is in good shape, but what about 2026? The Eagles are already third in projected dead cap heading into next season and have just $21 million in projected cap space despite having only 49 players under contract. Notably, players like Reed Blankenship, Nakobe Dean, Dallas Goedert, Josh Uche, and Azeez Ojulari are all slated to hit free agency.
Speaking of Goedert, he’ll be responsible for a whopping $20.5 million in additional dead cap once his contract voids at the start of the 2026 season. This is due to the aforementioned aggressive backloading on his contract, as the bill finally comes due if he isn’t re-signed prior to the start of the 2026 league year. The good news is the Eagles can avoid this dead money charge by “keeping it rolling” with another extension for Goedert, if they so choose. The bad news is there’s a hard deadline to avoid the dead money charge, which gives Goedert significant leverage and little financial incentive to take a small deal from Philadelphia.
Goedert already agreed to a pay cut in May 2025, reducing his base salary by $4.25 million in exchange for full guarantees on his remaining money. So clearly he’s at least willing to work with the Eagles and has a desire to stick around. The bigger question is if Goedert is in the Eagles’ future plans, and if they’re willing to pay him enough to keep him around. Goedert has struggled with injuries throughout his NFL career but especially last season, playing in just 10 games in 2024 and turning in the second-worst receiving performance of his career.
The Eagles have two options with Goedert in 2026. They can either let his contract void and eat the $20.5 million dead cap charge all at once, which would be painful but end the money snowball in 2026. Or, they could keep it rolling, giving Goedert a small extension to continue spreading out the dead cap into future years. Given that Goedert is entering his age-30 season and the Eagles’ current competitive window, it wouldn’t shock me if the decision resulted in giving Goedert that extension.
Much of that depends on Goedert’s play in 2025. If he returns to health and looks like a top NFL tight end again, it’ll be an easy decision for Philadelphia. Better to pay Goedert ~$10 million APY for a few more years to keep a valuable piece of the offense around and avoid a massive dead cap charge right in the middle of the team’s most competitive window. The questions and risk rise significantly if Goedert has a middling season or another injury-plagued year like 2024.
The best option for both sides is likely a reasonable extension before the 2026 league year that keeps Goedert around for another 2-3 years into his early-30s and helps the Eagles avoid a massive dead cap charge. Personally, I think the Eagles would be wise to spread that dead cap out a bit more over the length of contract and not overload the deal with void years. That way, the next time Goedert reaches a contract year, it won’t be nearly as painful to make the decision to move on.
That being said, it wouldn’t shock me if Howie Roseman continues to put the pedal to the metal on most contracts. As I’ve said, this is likely the best competitive window the Eagles will see in the next five years. I don’t think anyone will bat an eye about a roster and salary cap blowup in 2030 if Philadelphia can successfully contend for multiple Super Bowls over the next few seasons.
Playing the salary cap like this is risky business. Look at the New Orleans Saints for an example of how a similar strategy can go very, very wrong. But thus far, the Eagles have navigated it brilliantly. We’ll see just how long that can continue, but for now, it’s a lot of fun to watch.
