March 11, 2019
With Nick Foles signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Philadelphia Eagles will obviously have a new No. 2 quarterback in 2019, with the most likely option being Nate Sudfeld, who was formerly the No. 3 behind Carson Wentz and Foles.
According to Adam Caplan of Sirius XM NFL Radio, the Eagles have placed a second-round restricted free agent tender on Sudfeld.
For those asking, #Eagles are going to tender QB Nate Sudfeld at a 2nd-round level, source said.
— Adam Caplan (@caplannfl) March 12, 2019
That was the obvious move for the Eagles, but for those of you unfamiliar with the restricted free agent process, we'll explain.
Players with only three accrued seasons in the NFL whose contracts have expired are restricted free agents. The Eagles had four choices of what they could do with Sudfeld, who is a restricted free agent.
They could tender him at (1) the first-round level, (2) the second-round level, (3) the level of his original draft position (or low tender), or (4) they can just let him go.
Once tendered, if another team were to sign Sudfeld to an offer sheet, the Eagles would have a chance to match that offer, or allow him to sign with the other team, gaining a draft pick in the corresponding round with which they tendered him. The higher the draft round the Eagles tender him at, the higher the cost his 2019 contract will be if he doesn't get any offers elsewhere.
Here are the projected values of the restricted free agent tenders this year:
• First round tender: $4,407,000
• Second round tender: $3,095,000
• Original round tender: $2,025,000
Since Sudfeld was originally drafted in the sixth round, if the Eagles tendered him at the "original round" level, a team could sign Sudfeld to an offer sheet, and the Eagles would only get a sixth-round pick in return if they didn't match it. Sudfeld is worth far more than a sixth-round pick, so the Eagles absolutely do not want to see him get a nice offer from some other team, which would cost them either a lot of money to match, or only net them a sixth-round pick for losing their soon-to-be No. 2 quarterback.
And so, the Eagles tendered him at the second-round level, which means that if a team signed Sudfeld to an offer sheet, they would have to fork over a second-round draft pick if the Eagles didn't match. In that event, the Eagles would gladly accept the second-round pick. Since no team will want to lose a second-round pick to sign Sudfeld, he will almost certainly not be receiving any offer sheets.
Instead, Sudfeld will have a deadline of April 19 to sign the $3,095,000 second-round tender offered by the Eagles.
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