In case you missed it, long-time Philadelphia Eagles great Fletcher Cox retired on Sunday, almost a week after Jason Kelce called it a career. So what's next for the Eagles' defensive line, and their salary cap?
Let's start with the cap
As we explained in a similar story in the aftermath of Kelce's announcement, retirements work in a similar way to releases. Normally, if a player is released, whatever guaranteed salary is left on his deal, and any prorated bonus money that has already been paid out to the player will remain on the team's salary cap.
If a player retires, he does not get paid his salary (duh) or any roster bonuses, but any prorated bonus money already paid to the player that has not yet counted toward the salary cap will, you know, count toward the salary cap. Cox would have been a free agent this offseason, but he still had a lot of prorated bonus money on his previous contract that had not yet counted toward the cap.
The Eagles will be left with $14,300,000 in dead money from Cox's retirement. However, they could spread out his dead money hit over two seasons ($4,200,000 in 2024, $10,100,000 in 2025) if Cox waited until June 1 to officially file his retirement paperwork with the league. They'd save $1,500,000 on the 2024 cap if that's the route they choose.
Cox's retirement won't kill the Eagles' cap in 2024, but the $10 million hit in 2025 on top of Kelce's $16.4 million hit will leave a mark.
So what now along the defensive line?
The Eagles have been stocking up on interior defensive linemen in the draft the last few years.
| Year | Player (age) | Round |
| 2021 | Milton Williams (24) | 3 |
| 2021 | Marlon Tuipulotu (24) | 6 |
| 2022 | Jordan Davis (24) | 1 |
| 2023 | Jalen Carter (22) | 1 |
| 2023 | Moro Ojomo (22) | 7 |
Those guys have to step up.
Carter finished second in NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year voting last season, and looked dominant at times. The Eagles have to like what they saw from him as a rookie. Williams has been a good role player, and it's easy enough to project that he can become a starter.
Davis has yet to show that he was worth the price the Eagles paid to select him 13th overall in the 2022 draft, but he still possesses an incredible blend of size and athleticism and there were times early last season where you could see what he could potentially become. He will be under pressure to perform more consistently in 2024.
"If you look at our defense and you're just kind of honest with it, we have a lot of young players at defensive tackle," Howie Roseman said at the NFL Combine, when asked what his top priorities were in upgrading the defense. "Is that as big a priority as other areas, just being honest? Probably not. But that's also an important position, so we're also not going to be in a position where we turn down a guy because the resources are already there because we believe in the D-line so much."
In other words, the Eagles feel that they have a succession plan in place on the interior of their defensive line that they believe in.
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