April 04, 2022
In a vacuum, the Eagles shouldn’t have tried to beat the New England Patriots’ offer for veteran receiver DeVante Parker.
Philadelphia football under Jeffrey Lurie is all about trying to stack as many good decisions as possible and giving a 29-year-old receiver with a spotty injury history and one 1000-yard season somewhat significant money over the next two years – $5.65 million in 2022 and $5.7M in 2023 – seems specious.
That brings us to the existential idea that you can define decisions based on outcomes.
What most can’t wrap their heads around when it comes to problem-solving is the idea that a bad result is inherently birthed from a poor decision.
Smarter people than me figured out long ago is that there are unpredictable aspects of life that can derail any sound strategic decision. In other words, a good decision can result in a bad outcome or vice versa but the more good decisions you make increases your odds of getting the desired outcome.
The perfect local example of this in a sports sense is Carson Wentz. I tried to explain on-air for about an hour last week, framing what’s rather obvious to the forward-looking GMs in football: the contract extension the Eagles gave Wentz looks better and better by the day when you see the exploding salaries on the quarterback market. The organization, however, got the evaluation of the player wrong due to a host of unforeseen circumstances like injury, insecurity, personality and the pandemic.
In professional sports, the goal (for most) is to increase the odds of a championship. The process (not that process) is more important than the result long-term, but too many are trying to "win" every decision and that can also be crippling. The current flavor of the month in the NFL when it comes to decision-making is Vikings GM Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, the Cherry Hill native who is Princeton and Stanford educated.
"We're trying to win on the margins and so we're trying to extricate every little winning possible advantage we can find across football operations and using evidence to support that," Adofo-Mensah typically explains while holding court in front of reporters swooning like they are watching The Beatles or at least Sam Hinkie with people skills.
The Pats and the guy with the actual resume of winning that trumps every other decision-maker and will for a very long time moving forward got Parker and a 2022 fifth-round draft pick over the weekend in exchange for a 2023 third-round selection.
Admittedly, that does seem a little rich in black and white but the NFL’s thinking on future picks equates that to a 2022 fourth-rounder due to the uncertainties that will occur over the next calendar year.
What can’t be debated is that from a pure football sense is that the 6-foot-3, 219-pound Parker would still be a significant upgrade at WR2 in Philadelphia over the current options of Quez Watkins and Zach Pascal.
More so, the Eagles' actions to date already highlight a firm understanding that they need a significant upgrade at the position to better evaluate Jalen Hurts, a player that before you know it will be eligible for an extension that could be more expensive than Wentz’s was due to the aforementioned exploding QB market.
Failed attempts at trading for Calvin Ridley and Robert Woods, getting outbid for Christian Kirk, and losing out to the Super Bowl champs on Allen Robinson are compelling evidence that Howie Roseman understands the need for a veteran presence in the WR room and Nick Sirianni’s safety net of Pascal was not the goal.
And that landscape is why, inside the vacuum, trading for Parker is probably not a disciplined move, but outside of it, you have the pressure of responsible decision-making over an extended period not providing the desired outcome for at least three years at this particular position of need as a whole.
The draft awaits later this month and three first-round picks give Philadelphia the luxury of throwing another dart at the position but the plan was a veteran to help Devonta Smith grow, not another young body that Smith will ultimately be mentoring.
While mulling all of this I flipped on the TV and there was “The 40-Year-old Virgin,” the Judd Apatow comedy that helped turn Steve Carell from cable darling to sitcom and movie star.
For those who haven’t seen the movie, they obviously aren’t debating NFL WRs but Jay, played by Romany Malco, offered up Carell’s Andy some advice: “What has felt right for you doesn't work. You need to try some wrong, dog.”
Parker might be another example of the Eagles being a little too disciplined. He’s not my first choice and certainly not theirs, but the Eagles still desperately need a veteran upgrade of substance in that room.
There has to be a happy medium to all of this and the existence of Bill Belichick and Les "F*** them picks" Snead seems to confirm that thesis.
At WR, the Eagles might need to try some wrong.
John McMullen is a contributor to PhillyVoice.com, and covers the Eagles and the NFL for Sports Illustrated and JAKIB Media. He’s also the co-host of “Birds 365,” a daily streaming show covering the Eagles and the NFL and the host of “Extending the Play” on AM1490 in South Jersey. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com. Follow John on Twitter here.
