The Eagles are undergoing a rebuilding year that should be enjoyable.

Enjoyable? Why?

Because there no expectations. You can’t be disappointed when there are no expectations. We’ve finally put aside the late-stage misery of the Carson Wentz era to embark on a pragmatic fact-finding mission, so please leave the knee-jerk emotional reaction at home. And don’t give me this “there are no rebuilding years in the NFL” nonsense. Every pro football team cycles through good and bad, with franchise quarterbacks and generational players naturally coming and going. The only football teams in America that don’t go through some kind of transitional or rebuilding seasons are the Alabama Crimson Tide and St. Joe’s Prep.

Let’s embrace Nick Sirianni and give Jalen Hurts a chance while firing the Deshaun Watson rumors into another dimension. Seriously. Put them on Jeff Bezos’s space shuttle, but this time the rocket doesn’t return to Earth. It keeps going and going, way out past Pluto, which used to be a planet when I was a kid. Now it’s just a “dwarf planet,” and my elementary school, nine-planet mobile is now anachronistic.

The obvious truth is that the Eagles don’t need the ridiculous headache that Deshaun Watson would bring to Philadelphia. This isn’t the Michael Vick situation, where the guy served his time in jail and came out as a changed man. This isn’t the Odubel Herrera situation, where the Phillies already had the player on their roster, then had to stand aside and let MLB rules take precedence (and even then, his girlfriend dropped the charges). We’re talking about different situations entirely.


In Watson’s case, the legal side of it could take forever to be resolved. We know there are 22 women accusing him of sexual misconduct, and a Monday story from ESPN revealed a new turn in the saga:

Ten women have now filed complaints with Houston police about Texans quarterback Deshaun Watson, according to Watson’s attorney, Rusty Hardin.

Hardin spoke with ESPN on Monday about the progress of the criminal and civil cases involving his client.

“There are 10 women that have made complaints to the [Houston] police,” Hardin said.

Eight of the women, according to Hardin, are among the 22 women who have alleged in lawsuits that Watson sexually assaulted them or engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior during massage sessions.

Between civil and criminal suits, that’s 24 women making the sexual misconduct allegation. The whole thing is a mess. A resolution is not even visible on the horizon. And even if Watson did settle with every single accuser, an act that his lawyer would make public, not confidential, there’s no guarantee that even a year from now people would feel any differently about the guy, because settlement is not exoneration. Plus, even if legal proceedings play out in his favor, the NFL can still step in and take their own action, so that’s a wildcard to consider.

No doubt, it’s a raging dumpster fire. This would be like an elite cut of filet mignon going into a trash can, and you can buy low to salvage the filet because it is literally ablaze. But then your fan base is asking why you decided to reach into a dumpster fire, no matter how good the cut is. It ain’t worth it.

One thing I don’t think people talk about enough is the fact that the Eagles have not had a lot of “character issue” guys on the team in recent years. Mychal Kendricks participated in insider trading while playing for the Birds, but nobody knew about it at the time. Nigel Bradham punched the pool servant in the face and brought a loaded gun into an airport. Lane Johnson had the PED suspension in 2016 and there were relatively minor incidents for peripheral players like Josh Huff while Daryl Worley was booted for his transgressions before playing a single game.

The Eagles, for the most part, put together rosters featuring decent and likeable players.

More than anything, Birds fans and front office members need to be honest with themselves. The Eagles aren’t winning shit this year. They’re not. Maybe they exceed expectations and compete for the division title, but they are in a transitional phase, and they will be in that phase regardless of who plays quarterback. The skill players are too young, the defense has question marks, and 95% of the coaching staff is brand new.

So if you’ve got these extra draft picks and ammunition for a future QB move, give Jalen Hurts a shot this year. Let’s see what he’s got, and if he’s not the guy, consider a trade for a different quarterback next year. Or, you just package your assets to move up and grab a stud coming out of the draft. The Birds have “optionality,” as Daryl Morey likes to say.

The Eagles don’t need Deshaun Watson, no matter how good he is. They don’t need the headache. Leave the raging dumpster fire to extinguishment elsewhere. Fire the rumors into deep space.