Boom:

Taking all of the salary cap talk and putting it off to the side, Saquon Barkley deserved to be rewarded for his season. The guy ran for more than 2,500 yards and won the Super Bowl. He earned every dollar and more, especially at a position where teams no longer spend money and instead ride players through their rookie deals before discarding and moving on. It’s also somewhat funny to think the Eagles became the team to have the first $20 million running back considering they’ve rarely spent on the position in the past.

One of the patterns with Howie Roseman is that he likes to hand out extensions before the experts think he should. He’s basically rewarding players with cash up front and allowing himself more flexibility with the salary cap. You do these early extensions and restructures and clear out some immediate cap space while spreading it out instead. He’s done it so often and for so long that you just assume it’s wrapped into every deal he does. And he has the buy in to do it from the players and their agents.

When there’s some better reporting on the cap stuff, we will update, but good for Saquon and go Birds.