Eagles news Howie Roseman explains why he traded C.J. Gardner-Johnson

PALM BEACH, Fla. — Howie Roseman knows it doesn’t make sense in a vacuum.

To understand why he traded away starting safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson earlier this month, Roseman explained, you need to look at the bigger picture of where the Eagles sit from a team-building perspective. And even then, it doesn’t make it any easier to lose a good player that helped the Eagles win a Super Bowl.

“Every dollar that you spend is a dollar less that you can spend on some of these younger players that maybe you want to retain,” Roseman said at the NFL annual meetings on Monday morning. “Getting out in front of it was important to us. And again, hard decisions. Not asking anyone to agree with them but that's part of our job.”

The Eagles’ 2025 offseason has been different than last year. They let plenty of  talented players — Josh Sweat, Milton Williams, Mekhi Becton, etc. — leave in free agency earlier this month. And then they traded Gardner-Johnson to Houston for offensive lineman Kenyon Green and a pick-swap.

Roseman on Monday morning at The Breakers resort in South Florida explained the trade for the first time since pulling the trigger a few weeks ago.

“Well, I think if you're just taking the C.J. move in a vacuum, obviously, it's kind of not giving the whole perspective of where we're at,” Roseman said. “Chauncey did a great job for us in both the years that he was with us, obviously making the Super Bowl twice in two years with him as our starting safety.When you look at our team and you look at the amount of highly paid players who have earned their contracts — we’ve got eight guys who are making $15 million or more. We have, from 2022 to 2024 drafts, we have eight starters who are on the Super Bowl team. None of those guys have long-term contracts. In those drafts, we probably have five or six players that will be competing for starting jobs. So you have a lot of players coming through that aren't under long-term contracts plus a lot of guys who are on long-term contracts and we never want to be in a situation where we have one year where we're getting rid of 20 guys. 

“And we've been very fortunate to be aggressive in keeping our guys and signing guys in free agency. And it’s also gotta align with (the) draft and having young players. Certainly, that's the important thing to do is draft well and then keep your players. We’ve got to make sure that going forward we have an opportunity to do that as well. A lot of those players that we're talking about are good young players that we're excited about.

“And so we had to make some tough decisions here and it seemed like the moment to do that from a big-picture perspective. Not getting into any individual decision because I think all those individual decisions can be discussed, whether they were right or they were wrong, but I think from our perspective it was just more of this overall philosophy and that's what I was trying to say at the Combine. I'm very proud of us being aggressive in the trade market and creating an aggressive (free agency) market but it wasn't the time for that right now for where we are and the faith that we have in some of the young players. We’re looking forward to those guys stepping up and there'll be an opportunity to step up.”

Could the Eagles have prioritized keeping Gardner-Johnson this offseason? 

Sure. But as Roseman said at the Combine last month, every move the Eagles make has to come from somewhere else. The Eagles’ priority this offseason was keeping Zack Baun and they accomplished that with a three-year, $51 million deal. They also extended Saquon Barkley and Lane Johnson before scouring the bargain bin in free agency.

And to his point, the Eagles have drafted very well in recent years. Players like Cam Jurgens, Jordan Davis, Nolan Smith, Jalen Carter, Quinyon Mitchell, Cooper DeJean and more are still playing on rookie contracts. Some of those players are likely going to get big extensions at some point, especially Carter, who could reset the defensive tackle market next offseason.

For the Eagles, it’s about prioritizing as they build their roster from a long-term perspective.

And Roseman said they looked at the safety position as one where they have a young player, whom they drafted relatively high, who hasn’t gotten much of a chance to play. That player is obviously third-round pick Sydney Brown, who will enter Year 3 of his NFL career in 2025. The Eagles won’t hand Brown that job next to Reed Blankenship (another player due for an extension) but they definitely want him to compete for it.

As for the return on the trade, it obviously doesn’t seem great. Green has been in the NFL for three seasons and was a disappointment in Houston as a first-round pick. But Green will get a chance to work with legendary offensive line coach Jeff Stoutland in Philly.

“Obviously, Kenyon will be the first one to say that he hasn't had a start to his career that he thought he should,” Roseman said. “And just because maybe we've had success with getting some guys who have talent in their body, and just talking about the offensive line here in particular, and getting them to play at a high level, that doesn't guarantee success for the next guy. That’s got to be earned that's got to be earned through hard work that's got to be earned from performance on the field.”

The Eagles lost some good players this offseason but the cupboard is far from bare. This is still a really talented team that is built to compete in 2025 and beyond. The difference this time as opposed to the last time the Eagles were in this position, coming off a Super Bowl win, is that they have a ton of draft picks in their pocket — likely around 20 or so over these next two drafts.

Roseman understands if fans don’t like his decision to trade a fan favorite like Gardner-Johnson, but said it was one of those difficult decisions the Eagles needed to make this offseason.

It’s unclear if it’ll work out, but Roseman has probably earned the benefit of the doubt.