As the Philadelphia Eagles become the best team in the NFC, you need to recognize an important part of their roster-building mentality: They build reinforcements, preparing for the possibility that they could be wrong. “The big thing for us is, We’re going to be wrong quite a few times. Let’s minimize the impact if we’re wrong,” said former Eagles president Joe Banner, who fielded daily letters from a recent Fordham Law School graduate named Howie Roseman, until he finally hired him who had no prior NFL experience to help research the salary cap. Roseman was first named general manager in 2010 and was the architect of the NFC champions.

This helps explain the spectacular rise of cornerback Zack Baun. A 2020 third-round pick by the Saints, Baun never found a real role in New Orleans’ defense and signed a one-year, $3.5 million contract with Philadelphia last season. The Eagles also signed LB Devin White, who is expected to start next to Nakobe Dean. Instead, White was ruled out after being inactive for the first four games of the season. Baun also became a Pro Bowler, one of two players the Eagles signed in free agency last season. The other, running back Saquon Barkley, received a three-year contract with an average salary of about $12.6 million per season. In that case, the Eagles grabbed an undervalued asset, with the risk of signing a running back mitigated by the reasonableness of the contract compared to other positions and the huge potential reward if Barkley stays healthy and performs like most suspect he can behind a good offensive line. Of course, Saquon performed brilliantly. Baun and Barkley, who leads the league in rushing yards with 2,005 and is the favorite to be named the league’s Offensive Player of the Year, were the backbone of a wildly successful offseason of free agency and drafting for the Eagles, one that reshaped entire parts of the roster — see: the defensive secondary — and helped the team recover from its collapse in the second half of 2023. It was so good that it go down in history. According to NFL Research, the Eagles were the first team in the Super Bowl era to add two non-special teams starters in free agency and helped them earn first All-Defensive Team honors in their first season.